


Diamond in the Rough

by sillytwinstars



Category: Aladdin (1992), Soul Eater
Genre: Aladdin AU, Alternate Universe - Aladdin (1992) Fusion, Canon-Typical Violence, Dubcon peanut choking (à la Iago), F/M, Gen, I swear this fic is rated T, Inspired by Aladdin (1992), Language, Medusa lies a lot, Not Really Character Death, Several enthusiastic smooches, So many Aladdin references that it's probably illegal, Soul also lies a lot, Two and a half innuendos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-03-02 14:06:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 30,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13319745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sillytwinstars/pseuds/sillytwinstars
Summary: Seeking a new start, Soul escapes to Death City and settles into a quiet life of stealing food and ducking guards. However, his newfound peace is soon disturbed by a slithery villain and her angry bird, an obnoxious blue-haired genie, a sentient flying skateboard and one very cute meister. A very cute meister to whom he tells one very big lie. Aladdin AU!





	1. Oh I come from a land, from a faraway place

**Author's Note:**

> Hey hey Resbang gang! I can't believe it's already been a year. Time for Round 2!
> 
> I was amazingly fortunate to have TWO amazing artists this year, SandmanCircus & guacamoletrash. In addition to their badass artistic skillz (which you'll find throughout the story), they were also an amazing hype squad, fantastic betas and very patient with me during a rather ~turbulent time~. I loved our little Aladdin family. Thank you for everything!
> 
> Cheers to another Resbang with the rest of my lovely betas, filled with hilarity, memes, and... peanut discourse. skadventuretime, makapedia, professormaka, sahdah, aquabella888 and jaded_envy, I love this story as much as I do because of all of you. Thank you all. :)
> 
> As always, I am so glad you're here, and I hope you enjoy~

 

Tales of magic, of choices, of bittersweet deception, often begin in the simplest of ways: with a lie.

Rooted in darkness, in misplaced trust, these lies creep through the veins like poison. Those who deal in lies are said to have the blackest blood of all.

But lies are also glass. Expose a lie, and you may find yourself greeted with a beautiful, terrible, unthinkable force. Something so powerful, so destructive, that it can break through the darkness and forever change a path.

The truth.

In the bleakest, emptiest corner of the Nevada desert, a dark woman waits with a dark purpose.

.

**Diamond in the Rough**

.

Far across the desert sands, two hooded figures face the wind. Cool, dry air whips at their cloaks as they slip into the night, stars twinkling overhead in watchful silence.

One figure is shorter, and more unsure, stumbling across unfamiliar dunes. The other is disturbingly at ease - almost frighteningly so - as the smooth glide of their cloak across the sand blurs its tracks into obscurity.

"Medusa, h-how much long-" the shorter figure mumbles, physical stumbling leaking into their speech.

"Patience, Eruka," Medusa replies, a single red eye gleaming beneath the blackness of her cloak. "Don't worry. I'll send you back where you belong, once you've…  _assisted_ with what I need."

Eruka falls silent as waves of sand continue to blow past. The further they walk, the stronger the winds become, stars spinning into a grainy blur above their heads. After some time, Medusa glides to a stop, extending her hand to the side and stopping her accomplice.

"We're here."

Stooping to the ground, Medusa extends pointed nails and sinks them into the sand, claws scuttling through it like beetles as the storm continues to swell around them. As she does so, the sky clears, though the sand continues to spin around them. Suddenly, a sliver of stars appears in the sand, a reflection of the glittery black abyss that stretches overhead. With another sweep of her hand, a perfect oval reveals itself in the sand.

"A mirror?" Eruka asks. "How did you know where-"

"I can smell the stench of Death a mile away," Medusa says as she removes her hood, forked tongue slithering between her teeth. Next to her, Eruka blanches, gazing down at her with wide eyes.

"Don't worry, dear," Medusa soothes as she rises, clawed hand moving to pat her gently on the shoulder. "No harm will come to you... if you do as I say. You have my word."

Though she is practiced, there is a tiny lilt in her voice: the one that  _lies_  make.

"W-What do I have to do?" Eruka stammers.

Medusa looks back down at the mirror, eyes gleaming. "You're going to fetch something for me," she says lightly.

Bending down again, Medusa traces a series of numbers onto the face of the mirror. When she etches the final tail of the number four into the glass, the mirror sinks beneath the surface of the sand, leaving them standing in the darkness.

For several tense seconds, nothing happens. Just as Medusa starts to glance around in irritation, the earth begins to shake. Both figures fall to the ground, sand trembling on the tops of their cloaks. Out of the earth, a giant mound slowly materializes, and as the sand falls away, a mass of bone begins to poke its way to the surface. The two of them watch - one in horror, one in fascinated glee - as a massive skull appears in the sand.

As skulls go, it isn't terribly fear-inducing; in fact, its expression is almost goofy, despite the fact that it doesn't have a mouth. Instead, the strange pointed bits at the bottom of the skull have slivers of light spilling through. The light itself is almost welcoming, a beckoning golden hue, inviting weary travelers to take shelter beneath its pointed gates.

But its eyes, black and bottomless, are another story. The skull's gaze bores into the two figures, as if peering into the very depths of their souls.

"Hey! Hiya! Hello!" a voice suddenly booms, and Eruka jumps at the sound, slipping around in the sand. Medusa's face slides into a cunning smile.

"Who disturbs my slumber?!" the skull asks. Despite its choice of words, the skull doesn't seem particularly irritated about being roused - more like… cheerfully curious, if one had to put a finger on it. Eruka visibly relaxes at the greeting, though she tenses again when Medusa pulls her up to stand, nudging her forward toward the skull.

"Go on, introduce yourself," Medusa says, impatience dripping into her voice.

"Uh," Eruka says, stumbling forward, eyes fixed on the skull. "Um… nice to... meet you?" The skull stares back soundlessly. She looks back at Medusa, who glares at her, which evidently prompts her to continue. "I'm… Eruka, I own a pet shop in Death Cit-"

"It doesn't need your whole life story," Medusa says smoothly, cutting her off. Eruka blanches and falls silent. They wait for another moment while the skull stares at them, dark eyes carefully appraising its subjects.

"That sounds nice!" the skull booms, voice still teeming with kindness, but it doesn't stop Eruka from jumping again.

"I must warn you," the voice continues, more seriously now. "Only one may enter here. A sound soul that hides in the shadows. The diamond in the rough."

The skull falls silent, and Eruka turns back to Medusa.

"I kept my end of the bargain," Medusa reminds her, eyes narrowed and almost hypnotic as she stares Eruka down. "And you will keep yours."

"O-Okay…" Eruka says, turning to face the skull again, and she edges forward across the sand. The skull's entrance looms before her, light flaring beneath the pointed spikes. As she edges nearer, it's almost as through the skull is breathing, moving up and down slightly as the spikes slide in and out of the sand.

WIth a final look behind her, Eruka passes beneath the spikes, edging forward until-

"Whoops, I don't think you're the one I'm looking for!" the skull announces with far too much mirth, given the circumstances. Its eyes begin to glow an eerie white, initiating its slow descent back into the ground.

Eruka lunges back toward the entrance to the cave, eyes wide with fear. Just before she makes it to the gaps in the spikes, they slide down as if melting, and the skull descends back into the earth, bringing Eruka with it.

The last things to disappear, lying flat against the expansive black desert, are its white eyes, which fade softly into the night.

Medusa watches the ground for a moment, the chill of apathy apparent on her face.

"A sound soul that hides in the shadows," she muses, examining her nails and turning from where the skull had been. As she begins to walk away, her cape covers her tracks. "Where will I find them, this... diamond in the rough?"

"Use the blood!" comes a squawk from her pocket, and she plucks out a winged creature from the depths of her cloak, placing it back on her shoulder. It blinks frantically, x-shaped eyes glancing around.

"I'm amazed you managed to stay quiet that entire time, Ragnarok," Medusa says lightly.

" _Shut up,_ " the bird spits, black wings bunching into little fists. "You know I'm great at staying qu-" He coughs at the peanut that has suddenly entered his mouth as Medusa ensures herself a few more seconds of silence.

"I  _don't_  know that," she counters with a smirk. "But I think you're right. Let's have the blood search the shadows for us."

As the stars twinkle overhead, another gust of wind blows across the desert, leading them back into the city, complete with its white walls, its dark academy and all of its mysteries.

Within the walls, on a rooftop, sleeps a sound Soul.

* * *

He is  _never_  a jump ahead of the bread line.

The city is bustling at this time of day, and he hates it - not only because he hates being around people in general, but because it makes his lunch that much harder to lift. Normally they wait until later, when they can scavenge the scraps, but  _someone_  he's stuck with has other plans.

"Sooouulll, I'm hungry," a black cat whines at him, tail swishing impatiently as it paces along the corner of the alleyway.

"Dude. Blair." Soul's eyes flit towards her as he leans against the wall a couple of feet into the alley. "Stop talking. You'll get your fish."

"You're grouchy today," she says as she looks around the corner.

He scowls at her. "First of all. Hanger is a real,  _proven_  phenomenon," he says, tugging his headphones off of his ears. "And I've got a hard enough time blending in without my  _talking cat_  drawing attention to me. So shuddup."

"Hmm." She sniffs. "How rude. Blair's not sharing any fish with you today."

"You have never, not once, shared your fish with me, and I  _wouldn't ask for it_ ," he mutters, his head hitting the wall as he sighs.

"I wonder why you're so bad at stealing," she muses, walking back toward him and rubbing against his legs.

"Because some of us can't just walk up to the fish vendor and  _blink_  at him to get what they want," he grits out, a certain scientifically tested sensation getting the better of him.

Blair's back pulls into a defensive arch as she looks up at him.

"Oh yeah?" she says, eyes narrowing mischievously. "Fine. Wait here."

"Wait- what are you-" he starts to say, but she has already flitted out into the street, leaving him standing awkwardly in his alley. He's caught between chasing after her and keeping himself hidden, for fear that the city guards will grab ahold of him and separate him from his very annoying, but also very-only-friend-in-the-world cat.

Fear, as usual, keeps him skulking in the alley, forever doomed to the shadows.

He spends a lot of time in alleys. They're often the safest places in town, even with some of the city's shadier characters taking refuge there. There's no place for castaways or runaways in Death City, and since he himself checks both of those boxes, he slinks his way through his days, ducking the guards and scrounging up food the only way that he knows how:

… By relying on his cat, apparently.

"Time to go!" Blair yowls as she shoots past him, and it takes a second for him to realize what has happened before he jumps and sprints after her. He realizes belatedly that she has a hot dog wedged between her teeth, sticking out of the sides of her face like a pair of handlebars.

"Ugh,  _gross_ , Blair," he says as a cacophony of familiar angry sounds starts to build behind him. Blair leaps onto a dumpster at the end of the alleyway and then onto a rooftop, turning to wait for him.

He's hauling himself up onto the roof as a group of guards crowds into the alley, and adrenaline shoots through him as hears a very familiar voice yell out, "Get him!"

A hulking, hairy man with a strange red-and-white eye appears around the corner, and Soul slips down the roof a little as they lock eyes.

"Don't let him get away this time!" the man hollers. Several of his cronies sprint down the alley in front of him, headed straight for Soul, and the man is right behind them.

"Oh, come  _on_ , not this guy again," Soul grumbles as they come closer, waving their batons and yelling. Yanking himself up onto the tiles, he scrambles up onto the roof with a grunt. Behind him comes a great  _bang_ , followed by "damnit!" Out of the corner of his eye, Soul sees the hairy man frantically hopping on one foot, as the other foot has somehow encased itself in ice.

Soul is well-acquainted with the bizarrely manifesting powers of the Head of the Guard. It's a relatively new development, the result of a... strange turn of events that Soul doesn't like to dwell on.

As the dumpster begins to heave with the metallic sound of  _pursuit_ , he rips his eyes away and Soul and Blair take off along the rooftops, eyes set on their home.

"That's…" he gasps at Blair as he catches sight of the hot dog in her mouth again. " _So gross_."

"So underappreciated," he can hear her singsonging in front of him as they run. It's clear that he spends _far_ too much time with her, since he can still understand what she's saying with a hot dog stuck in her face.

"Soul doesn't want fish, so Blair gets him his favorite lunch," she says. "And hooow does he repay her? By being a rude, rude boy. For shame."

"I'm sorry that  _cat saliva_   _isn't a condiment I normally put on my hot dogs!_ " he squawks at her as they run, the sounds of the guards gradually fading into the distance behind them.

They both know that he'll eat it anyway.

As always, they manage to outrun the guards, and they make their way up to one final roof. Blair jumps up into his arms (hot dog and all) and he holds onto her as they walk up the narrow outdoor fire escape to an old, crumbling apartment complex. In a corner of the roof lies a makeshift tent, constructed out of old clothes and bed sheets, hung up on a borrowed laundry string.

"Home sweet home," he mutters as he collapses into the tent. Blair drops the hot dog in his lap unceremoniously and prances out of the tent towards her water bowl.

"Wait," he says with a start. "You didn't get fish."

"I'll get some later," she says haughtily from outside the tent. "Like you said. It's not very hard."

He rolls his eyes, but as he looks down at his hot dog, he realizes that there is something tucked into the side of the bun. As he pulls out a relish packet, he smiles a little, ripping the plastic and dumping it onto his hot dog.

"Blair  _knows_  which condiment you normally put on your hot dogs," she sniffs at him as she reenters the tent and curls up into a grouchy ball.

Soul lets out a sigh. "Yeah, she does," he agrees. Her grouchiness remains, illustrated in the irritated twitch of her tail, so he chews his hot dog in silence. After a moment, he leans over and flips open the side of the tent, flooding the space with light and revealing their usual view.

Its presence is as imposing as ever. From their spot atop the apartment complex, their entire view is taken up by a massive castle-like structure, skull eyes boring into them from beyond the towering walls that stretch around the school.

"Hey, Blair," Soul says after a minute. "Do you know what today is?"

"What?"

"It's… been six months today."

Blair makes a sort of purring-yowl sound and rolls over to look at him, black-purply belly exposed. "Since we became friends?"

He chuckles. "Are we friends? I thought I just let you stay in my swanky apartment rent-free."

She rolls her eyes. "Yeah, we're really in the lap of luxury here."

He almost laughs, but this  _is_  his luxury now, despite what he has left behind. "But yeah, it's been six months since… since you saved me."

She looks up at him again, irritation dissipating with the breeze that blows through the tent flaps.

"I was just getting you lunch," she says, but she walks over and butts her head against his hand. "Like I always do."

He scratches behind her ears with a grin, and she curls up in his lap while the two of them gaze up at the building.

"Wouldn't be so bad to live up there instead, would it?" he murmurs, and Blair looks up at him, familiar with this particular monologue.

"Sorry, kitten," she says, sinking her claws into his leg and making him wince. "Maybe someday, if you sprout a jetpack or something, you can fly over there and be useful."

"Yeah," he says, watching the sunset sink beneath the school. "That's... never gonna happen."

* * *

"Maka? Are you in there? Sweetheart?"

Maka stands beside the door, back to the wall, trying very hard to emulate what it sounds like to  _not be in here_. She waits for footsteps to echo their way down the hallway, and when they do, she slips out the door, trying her best to silently navigate the hallway in combat boots. Tiptoeing through rooms with vast ceilings and marble floors is not an easy feat, but she makes her way down the outside stairs and into the front courtyard before the doors behind her burst open.

"Makaaaaaa! There you are! Papa's been looking for you!"

She scrunches her face up before turning around, but she quickly settles into her Slightly Less Irritated expression, which will hopefully keep her from unleashing her anger on her father before eleven in the morning.

"Hey, Papa," she says, resigned.

"I've brought _five weapons_  in today, sweetheart!" he says, throwing his arms wide as he descends the stairs. "Let's give 'em the old college try! Sound okay?"

"Not in college yet, Papa," she grits out, though  _he's_  the one reminding her of this every five minutes, so he should really know better. He starts laughing nervously, which is what he does when he's already done something that she wouldn't like. Already suspicious, she fixes him with a steely glare and waits.

"Well… Papa's hoping you'll say yes, because he's already cleared your entire schedule for the afternoon to make room!"

"You  _what?_ " she says, voice deadly and dangerous, and he jumps a little. "You know today's my fullest day of class, Papa!"

"I know, but it was the only time they could come," he says a little desperately, pleading at her with his eyes. "And there's only so much ti-"

"Stop," she says, cutting him off. She starts to walk back up the stairs into her bedroom, hot Nevada sun fueling her anger.

"There's only-"

" _Yes_ ," she says emphatically, turning around on the stairs and balling her fists as she looks down at him. "I know how it goes. If meisters don't find a weapon partner by their eighteenth birthday, or vice versa, we lose our abilities. We're out. You toss us into the streets. And it looks bad if the  _mayor's daughter_  can't find a weapon.  _I get it_."

She sees his face fall, and she sighs, walking back down the stairs to where he stands, gazing at the ground.

"Papa, I… I know this isn't your fault. And I know you're trying really hard for me. But…" She looks up at him, determination glistening in her eyes. "I'm not going to settle. I want to find… somebody special. Someone who I can trust."

Her father looks down at her, red hair spilling into her face as he pulls her into a hug. "I know, baby girl. But we have to keep trying, you know?"

She sighs against his shoulder. "Yeah, I know."

"...So you'll go see them?"

She groans a little. "Yeah, I will."

He throws himself into the air with joy, legs lifting toward the sky. Maka follows behind him, already very sure of what's about to transpire.

All five of them are awful.

"Nope," Maka says after an hour of trying to wield them all. When the last weapon she's supposed to be meeting with says something like "it's cute that you think you can call the shots, sweetheart," it's the  _final straw._

"You should do something about your daughter, Spirit," one of the other weapons mutters to her father, and Maka turns around to face him, seething.

"What did you say?" she says.

Spirit is looking back and forth between Maka and all of the weapons nervously and, with a final pleading glance at her, he starts to flutter his way over to them, putting on his most appeasing expression.

She can see which side he's chosen, so she turns tail and stalks out of the room, absolutely livid, absolutely needing to get out of this place, out of the world she's feeling forced both into and out of at the same time.

If nobody wants her here, she'll make an early exit. She won't wait around for someone to throw her out.

She heads to her room, puts together a bag, and makes a plan.


	2. I steal only what I can't afford - that's everything

Soul moves extra carefully in the market today, watching the stalls with narrowed eyes. His headphones hang around his neck like a security blanket, the thrum of the bass line against his collarbone keeping his heart rate in check.

After Blair's hot dog shenanigans yesterday, his ego is more bruised than he'd like to admit. He'd thus spent the morning insisting that he can get his own damn lunch,  _and her lunch too, for that matter._

As usual, he talked too big and is now paying the price. The food trucks in the street taunt him, and the scent of deep fried delicacies wafting through the market makes his stomach grumble. He's trying to look as nonchalant as he can, and luckily he has perfected this particular skill - hiding layers of anxiety and stress beneath a gloriously unapproachable exterior.

Hot dogs are out of the question after yesterday's feline filching, so he sets his sights on a Chinese food truck that currently seems unmanned. With a quick glance around, he darts into the back of the truck.

Coast clear. He dumps a bunch of spring rolls from a plate on the counter into his backpack. They're sort of cold, but he learned a long time ago not to be picky.

Part one of two complete. He tries not to let himself get lulled into a false sense of security as he slings the bag over his shoulder and slinks back into the alley. After all, the hardest part is yet to come, and the mantra he's been repeating to himself for the past six months springs back into his mind:

_You're only in trouble if you get caught._

Streaks of sunlight fall into the street, highlighting the tips of the stalls. He can already  _smell_  where he needs to go, and the shadows pass over him as he initiates part two of this very unfortunate mission.

His only advantage is the fact that he never frequents this stall; Blair does her own dirty work, and he can imagine the yellow glint of her eye behind him, peering around the corner in case something goes awry. Even so, he saunters up to the fish cart, trying to look intrigued rather than revolted by the selection. He'd loved raw fish, back where he'd come from, but this fish is  _pungent_ , left in the sun to fester, and it makes him nauseous. He tries not to cringe when the man at the cart eyes him warily.

"See anything you like?" the man says, gaze fixed on him.

"Uh. Maybe," Soul says, trying to force a smile. The man stares back at him.

He's so  _bad_  at this. He knows it, this man knows it, every person in this goddamn market subconsciously knows it. But he can't back down.

"Well, decide, or move along," the man says, and Soul blanches.

"Mm. Fine, then," he says, feigning offense. As he turns to leave, he grabs the tails of two fish and drags them into his bag. When he does, another fish, dragged along with the others, falls onto the ground at his feet with wet  _flop_.

"Uh," he says, heart thundering in his chest. "Sorry." He picks up the fish, now covered in very inedible-looking marketplace dirt, and looks at its sandy surface. Beyond it, the man's eyes narrow.

"You'd better be able to pay for that," the man says dryly, and Soul's fingers clench around the top of his bag.

"I uh…" Soul says, eyes darting around, trying to pinpoint the best course of action. He gently wipes the fish on the top of his bag and sets it back on the cart amongst its friends, streaks of dirt still lining its scales. "See? It's… it's clean. Mostly. No harm no uh… foul?"

He stops talking when the shadow of the man appears over him, moving around the cart to tower over him.

"I meant," the man says, fist bunching into Soul's collar. "The other two."

He's in trouble.

"Ah," Soul says, though it comes out more like a squeak as the man lifts him up by the collar. Clawing at the man's hands, Soul starts to sputter as he eyes the alleyway where Blair is because, despite his best efforts, he has failed in the art of the cool, smooth operator and needs her to come in with her cat wiles and do damage control.

His face starts to turn red as his legs swing beneath him, the cart owner's very angry face filling up most of his vision as his eyesight starts to swim. "I-" he chokes out, "I can-"

Before he can finish, a blur of gray appears in his periphery and  _wham_ , the man doubles over as he endures a swift blow to the gut. He drops Soul instantly, and as Soul rolls away, he lies there for a minute to catch his breath, eyes watering.

He wonders where in the world Blair had learned to pack that kind of punch before he looks up and realizes that his saving grace, for the first time in his six-plus months of delinquency, is  _not_  his cat.

Instead, his rescuer is tall and lithe, a gray hoodie covering her head and torso. A red and black plaid skirt peeks out from beneath the bottom of the hoodie, with long, bare legs stretching to the tops of chunky combat boots. He can't see her face, as her back is to him, but despite her mysterious identity, there is something about her that he discerns immediately.

She can  _fight_.

After the gut-punch, she swoops in again, fist meeting fish-man's face with a crunch. As Soul pulls himself into a sitting position, his jaw hangs limp, watching the unfolding scene in confusion. The man staggers backwards into his cart, totally blindsided by the second contact.

Soul dimly registers that he should, ideally, be getting the fuck away from here, since an escape opportunity this golden presents itself approximately  _never_. But he remains where he is, spellbound by the scene before him: the slow-motion cascade of fish sliding off the cart, the heavy flopping symphony of scores of fish hitting the pavement, the distressed cry of a recently robbed fish-man losing his day's catch.

But more than that, it's this  _person_  who holds him there. There's an unbridled confidence about her that reads in the controlled movement of her steps. It's the _legs_ , he knows, which he is having a hard time keeping his eyes away from for reasons he will not investigate, because he will  _not_  ogle someone who has just come to his rescue. He will not.

His hastily-made vow of chastity is immediately tested as the figure chooses this exact moment to bend down and stretch one leg out long,  _long_ , and Soul absolutely does not trace the length of it with his eyes as it swipes against Fish-man's ankles, causing him to tumble to the earth as her leg makes a perfect arc in Soul's direction. The hood on her sweatshirt falls away, revealing a pair of blonde pigtails and a set of green eyes that are immediately trained on him.

Before he can blink, she's in front of him, grabbing him by the side of his shirt as she drags him to his feet.

"What are you still doing here?!" she says, voice low, her face inches from his as she moves past him.

Before he can stutter out an answer, he's being forcibly dragged through the street, and he barely manages to cling to his bag of stolen fish as she breaks into a run. He stumbles into a jog just to keep up with the pace her bunched fist has set against his shirt. Behind him, the unmistakable sound of the city guards converging on the scene meets his ears, and suddenly there's a new spring in his step as he follows his rescuer away from the threat of yet another ass-kicking. Though to be fair, he wouldn't mind watching another one of those if she's the one packing the punches.

He also  _used_  to think that he'd been somewhat in shape, based on the amount of running they've had to do to keep away from the guards. He reflects on what it feels like to be wrong as he gasps against the fire in his lungs. "W-Wait-" he stutters. "We gotta get- my cat-"

"You mean this cat?" his manhandler says lightly, sounding completely unwinded, and he takes a moment to feel rather inferior about that as he peeks around her to see Blair running right next to them.

"Ugh. Yeah," he sighs.

"Where am I going?" she says, eyes actively scanning the alleyways as they move through the streets.

"She'll- show you-" he gasps, pointing at the cat, and at this cue, Blair takes off ahead of them, towards a familiar rooftop.

"What were you  _thinking_?" his rescuer says as they run. It dawns on him that he is being nagged - by someone he has known for circa two minutes, no less - and it makes him bristle.

"I was  _hungry_ ," he gasp-gripes. He's getting progressively more dead on his feet, so his snark is less potent than usual.

"So you decided to steal  _fish_?!" she says, shooting him a glare. "The most smelly and  _traceable_  of all potential lunches?!"

She's smart, too. This is terrible news, a truly unfortunate discovery that makes his heart stutter and adds to the strain on his lungs. He resigns himself to the idea that maybe his being out of shape is not the only reason he is short of breath.

"Blair likes fish!" he retorts, pointing at the cat again. Somehow she seems to accept this explanation, falling into silence as the sounds of the Death City cavalry echo into the distance behind them.

By the time they get back onto the roof, Soul is doubled over, gasping for breath as his rescuer and Blair both stare at him.

" _What?_ " he says as he stands, hand on his chest to steady himself.

"You're... a mess," she says with a little laugh, and he absolutely agrees, but with his pride  _thrice_  wounded since this morning, he will most definitely  _not_  say so.

"I didn't ask for your help," he grumbles. In response, she crosses her arms and glares down at him.

"I know you're just hungry," she says lightly, "so I'm going to let that go."

Exposed. He curses internally. He wears his heart  _and_  his hanger on his sleeve, apparently.

"Can I at least know what your  _name_  is before you insult me some more?" he says.

This distracts her. She stills for a moment, light bouncing off her blonde hair in the mid-afternoon sun. She's weighing her options, and weighing  _him_ , he can tell. Finally, she seems to arrive at some sort of conclusion, because she walks over to him, and the sun lights the green in her eyes as she extends her hand.

"My name's Maka," she says. Her gaze is hard, determined, but there's a smile that twists the corner of her mouth.

"...Soul," he says as he shakes her hand. She gives it a squeeze and lets go, and his hand tingles a little.

It hits him, for the second time since this morning, that he is in trouble.

"Now if you'll excuse us," he adds, picking up Blair's bag and dumping his hard-won fish into her little bowl. "We've got lunch to eat."

He sits down and opens his bag as Maka stares down at him, still irritated.

"Spring roll?" he says dryly, extending his attempt at a deep-fried olive branch.

His heart gives another little flutter as she takes it.

* * *

"What the hell are you waiting for, use the thing!"

Medusa's eyes narrow and slide to her left, where her own personal Angry Bird is ruffling his feathers, irritation prominent in the twitch of his x-eyes.

"Why so hasty, Ragnarok?" she says smoothly, eyes gliding back towards the table they stand behind.

"I'm  _bored_ ," he whines, wings morphing into fists for another moment as his chest puffs out. "I wanna see some madness, and you've been spending all of your time  _schmoozing_  with that red-haired nitwit-"

"That red-haired nitwit," Medusa says, "is the reason you and I still live comfortably within the city walls."

" _Comfortably?!_ " Ragnarok blurts. "You call that comfortable, him stuffing peanuts in my face every two sec-"

"You love peanuts," she says dismissively, turning back to the table and grabbing hold of a heavy black cloth that is draped over something on the table.

"It's the  _principle_ ," he grits, clicking his tongue at her as she pulls the cloth away, revealing a smooth black mass that sits stagnant within a large silver bowl. He falls silent as the two of them take in the sight before them.

The room is dark, and the blood itself is difficult to see as Medusa reaches out a pointed nail and dips it into the mass, swirling the blood around with her index finger. Black curtains hang loosely beside the tinted windows, and the way the blood awakens seems to make the deepening shadows in the room come alive. They dance in the soft purple light emitting from the jars full of dark magical things that line the shelves. At Medusa's feet, several snakes twirl themselves around the legs of the table.

Medusa gazes into the pool, watching black ripples swirl against the sides of the bowl, coming to dance with the shadows. Beneath the table, the snakes twist themselves into hissing knots, slithering up to curl along the sides of the bowl.

She watches and waits. Ragnarok munches noisily on his peanut right next to her ear, but she ignores him for the time being as the pool begins to swirl faster, little droplets rising to the surface and fading away as the blood maps its way through the shadows.

As the blood begins to smooth out, its search of the city complete, an image of a white-haired young man appears. As Medusa watches, he scrambles onto a rooftop, helped up by a figure in an oversized gray hoodie that shrouds their face.

The purple hue of the room burns in her eyes as the sweep of recognition crosses her features. Yes, his face is familiar. Not because she has seen him before, but because she knows that someone  _else_  has.

She tugs the cloth back over the blood, pulls out a paper and pen, and looks to Ragnarok, who is rubbing his wings together in wicked mirth.

"Time to fly," she says as he clamps down on the note with his beak. Minutes later, he returns with a reply, and the two of them pore over it together, identical wicked smiles crossing their faces.

Medusa feeds him a celebratory peanut before ripping the note into tiny, meticulous pieces.

* * *

Once Soul is properly fed and watered, Maka notices an immediate change in him.

"Huh, you really  _were_  hungry," she says lightly. "I guess that's why you were acting like a spoiled brat."

"I'm not a spoiled brat," Soul grits, crossing his arms in a way that forcibly reminds her of a  _spoiled brat_. She rolls her eyes at him, and they return to eating in silence, wind whistling slightly against the tent.

"Are you… visiting from somewhere?" Soul asks suddenly. "I haven't seen you around the city before."

She pauses, wondering how much truth to tell. But as she watches him, late afternoon sun casting his silhouette in shadow, she makes a choice.

"Actually," she hedges, "I'm from the Academy."

This definitely surprises him, as he pauses with a spring roll halfway to his mouth and turns to face her completely.

"The Academy," he says, deadpan. "Like-" He flips up the tent flap, flooding her face with light and making her squint. Against the sun lies its full majesty, bathed in sweltering afternoon light. "That Academy."

She shields her eyes against the sun, glaring at him a little - or maybe at the school, she can't really tell. "That's the one," she mumbles, pulling down the tent flap and plunging them back into shadow. The way he's looking at her makes her squirm - a little awed, a little skeptical.

"You're surprised," she says when he doesn't say anything.

"Well…  _yeah_." When she glares back at him, he answers with a shrug. "I thought everyone up there would be assholes. And you… aren't?"

"How do you know?" she challenges, though she's teasing a little. "I could be."

"Nah," he says, looking at his feet. "I know what assholes are like. Wait." He turns to her again, suddenly very intrigued. "Are you a weapon?" She watches him inspect her, as if he's searching for her On button.

Maka smiles thinly. "Meister," she says, gritting her teeth. Saying the word reminds her of places she no longer belongs.

He is surprised again. She watches his eyebrows disappear into his hairline. "Really?"

" _Yes_ ," she says impatiently. He watches her in silence. "...Not what you were expecting for a meister?" she says dryly.

He's embarrassed, now, a blush tinting his cheeks. "Well, no-" he admits.

"Didn't expect someone who could fight in a skirt?" she retorts.

He's  _very_  embarrassed now, and through her irritation, she notes that it looks good on him. "No- it's just-"

"What? Didn't expect a  _gir_ -"

"Ugh,  _no!_  I didn't... expect someone so  _cute_ , okay?  _Yeesh_." He hides his face in his hands, and suddenly they are both blushing because of things they didn't expect.

"Hey, uh, but really," Soul says, eyes on the floor, clearly eager to change the subject as he lowers his hands. "Thanks. For saving me."

Maka watches him for a moment, taking in the way he slouches in on himself, the quiet way he carries his gratitude. She decides that she might like the way he does those things, and she gets an inkling that maybe, with time, she might discover more things that she likes about this quiet, grouchy, mysterious boy.

"You're welcome," she murmurs, and takes another bite of her spring roll.

"I did wanna ask, though-" he starts. Guilt weighs down his features, but curiosity picks them up again. "Why? You don't seem like the kind of person who's okay with… y'know…  _theft._ "

She stills, thinking back to the marketplace, to the gentle glow calling to her through the crowd.

"You…" she says, watching him. "You have a good soul."

He stares at her. "...What."

She smiles a little. "Yeah. I... can tell."

A bashful silence stretches between them... until it is broken by something else that they didn't expect.

" _There you are!_ " comes a voice from the other side of the tent - a deep voice that makes both of them jump in recognition. Heads hitting the sides of the tent, they both scramble toward the opening.

"They're after me-" they say in unison, and then jump again, staring at each other. " _They're after you?!_ "

"Gotcha!" comes a sudden shout very close to the tent, followed by an angry muffled yowl. Soul's hand stills as his hand catches on the zipper, fear set into his face.

"Blair!" he shouts, yanking the zipper open, but as he opens the tent, a familiar figure steps in front of them.

"Found ya!" the deep voice says, one red eye gleaming in its socket. Maka tugs up her hood as she sees him. The two of them backtrack, scrambling to the other side of the tent - the one that overlooks the city - as Free lunges toward her.

Because she knows that's who this is, Medusa's little crony who leads the guard, and she grabs Soul's arm and drags him through the opening, vertigo setting in as the two of them teeter on the side of the building. Her eyes dart along the fire escape, the pattern it makes as it zigzags toward the ground, and something comes tumbling out of her mouth before she can register what it means.

"Do you trust me?" she says, and despite her panic, there's a deep-seated  _something_  that sticks into her gut because, unexpectedly, she really wants to know.

And she doesn't have to wait, because his response is automatic - spurred on by urgency, or certainty, she doesn't know, but as they stand atop the city, the thrill of adrenaline coursing through them, he reaches for her hand like he's done it a thousand times.

"Yes."


	3. It's barbaric, but hey, it's home!

As it turns out, jumping with a goal doesn't make the act of  _falling_  any less terrifying.

When Soul's feet leave solid ground, gravity sinks into his stomach like lead. The winding rickety metal against the building comes steadily closer, and it hits him that perhaps he should have considered a more trustworthy landing ground before blindly jumping on board with this plan.

But it's far too late for that, and the tops of his shins sting as his shoes slam onto the fire escape, the bottoms of his feet reverberating unsteadily as the metal creaks beneath them. Before he can fully stand, Maka's next to him, hood pulled back up and hanging just over her eyes, and he doesn't have time to think before she grabs his hand again, tugging him down the stairs as they wind their way down the side of the building, metal clanging against her boots as she drags him along.

Just as they've nearly reached the bottom, a figure slams to the ground in front of them, shadows spilling across his broad shoulders as he grins down at them. Soul's entire body freezes as he stares up at a face he's only seen this close once before.

"About time I caught up with you both," the man says with a laugh. The black bag clenched in his left hand gives another angry yowl, and Soul stiffens and rises up to his full height, fists clenched, because he's a coward about fish but impossibly loyal when it comes to his cat.

"Give back my cat, you ass-" Soul growls.

"C'mon now," the man says. "It's not  _me_  that wants you, this time. So if you go nice and quietly, maybe you can-"

"Fat chance," Soul says.

"Okay," he says, shrugging like he's being asked to do a mildly irritating chore. "If that's the way you wanna do it-"

From behind him comes a small scuffling sound, and suddenly he and Maka both have their hands bound from behind, two more guards pinning their hands to their backs.

"Bag him," the man says with a little sigh, and Soul's vision goes black as another bag - similar to the one Blair sits in - slides over his eyes.

"Hey, what the-" Soul yells, and the guard behind him squeezes his arms tighter. He shuts up, heart racing, trying to piece together what exactly is going to happen to him.

But as they start to walk away, Maka, who had been eerily silent since they'd been cornered, says stonily, "Let us go, Free."

The man -  _Free_ , apparently - stops them.

"Who…?" he hears Free mutter curiously, and a moment later, the guards holding them both let out a gasp.

"Let us go, Free," Maka says again, and Soul can tell that the atmosphere has changed. The guard behind him loosens his grip on his arms slightly, as if unsure of how to proceed. Free, on the other hand, lets out a little disbelieving laugh.

"Now  _that's_  a surprise!" Free starts laughing harder, and Blair yowls again as she's jostled around. "What is Spirit Albarn's daughter doing outside the walls? In  _this_  part of town? And in such… questionable company?"

Soul's eyes fly open against the bag, trying to see Maka again, to meet her eyes through the blackness.

Spirit Albarn's daughter?  _The mayor's daughter?_

"You don't need to worry about that," Maka says smoothly, and there's the smallest hint of fanfare, of  _power_  in her voice that wasn't there before. "The only thing you need to do is let us go."

"Ah," Free says a little abashedly, though Soul can hear that he's still smiling. "I wish I could do that." He doesn't, Soul thinks, but it doesn't matter. "I really do, except my orders come from Medusa. I can't take your word over hers. You'll have to take it up with her."

He hears Maka rip herself free from the hands of the guard, and she instantly grips Soul's shoulder. It's a gesture of reassurance, but he can still feel the tremor in her fingers.

"Oh, believe me," Maka says, voice deadly. "I will."

In a dark room behind the walls, Medusa's face slides into a challenging little smile.

* * *

The first thing Soul sees when he opens his eyes is  _fire_.

It's the only thing he  _can_  see, actually, spilling through the bars of a tiny grate in his door. Between the bars is a silhouette, on the retreat after pulling away his bag.

"Hey!" Soul jumps up, running to the door, trying to see the person, but all he sees as they round the corner is the hood of a black cloak.

" _Hey!_ " he yells again, his stomach twisting as his eyes further adjust to the dark room that he's in, one that is essentially a dungeon. Water drips down the sides of the walls, reflecting a narrow square of moonlight that pours in through a window near the top of the high ceiling.

He'd been separated from the rest of the group a few minutes before, Maka's whispered  _"I'll handle this"_  serving as their only parting words.

"What's going on?" he calls out. "Maka? Blair?" Hell, he'll even take Fish-Man. Or Free. Instead, the gentle drop of condensation is his only companion. "God damnit, what did you assholes do with my ca-"

"I think she's safe," a high-pitched voice drawls from behind him. He freezes, and waits for a second before swiveling around.

In a corner of the room sits a little girl, wearing all black, black hood covering her blonde hair, eyes glinting in the light of the torch outside.

"Uh," he says as the girl watches him expectantly. He tries to shake all of the horror movie parallels out of his mind. "Who are you, exactly?"

"It doesn't matter who I am," the girl says, taking down her hood, revealing tendrils of hair that twist into a spiral below her chin. "What  _matters_  is that I can get you out of here."

"...How?" he asks.

"When you know how to get in," she says, "it's easy enough to get out."

She's not wrong, he supposes, but something about the way she says it gives him pause, like he's talking to someone much older than a child. Horror movie scenes creep back into his mind unbidden and he pushes them back out again.

"There's something I need you to do for me first, though," she adds, eyes glinting in the firelight.

_Not a human sacrifice, not a human sac-_ "What is it?" he says, slamming the door anew on that train of thought.

"There's a place in the desert," the girl says. "I want to see it."

He considers how he trusts this little blonde probably-demon exactly zero percent… and then considers his cat. Considers seeing another blonde girl again, one that he likes considerably more than this one.

His visitor's really got the demonic vibe going, now, face contorting into an almost snakelike grin. He's freaked out, but he's not an idiot, and he uses something that his previous silver-spoon life has taught him:

There's no such thing as a solid deal without a little leverage.

"My cat," Soul says. "She's here somewhere. Bring her to me, and we'll take you on your little trip."

The girl starts to smile, and Soul recognizes it: it's the smile someone makes when they've made a better deal than you.

"Excellent," she says as he swallows thickly. Just as her smile starts to widen to an alarming degree... she disappears.

Soul jumps, because that is what happens when someone is there and then in the next moment simply _isn't_ , like smoke in the wind.

He waits, watching the torch through the bars for several minutes, until suddenly, a pointy-eared silhouette blocks the moonlight coming in through the window.

"Blair?" he says, whipping around. She's jumping her way down to him in an instant, paws making purchase on the uneven stone before she bounds into his lap.

"Hey," he says, scratching behind her ears.

She's glaring at him, seeming to choose her words very carefully before sighing, "You owe me a looooot of fish, kitten."

He's about to answer her when, in the exact spot where his previous visitor had appeared (and disappeared), a section of stone starts to grind against itself, moving sideways to reveal a hidden passageway bathed in deep red light.

Soul and Blair glance at each other and then into the passageway. At the bottom of the stairs stands the girl, the sides of her black cloak flowing menacingly beside her.

"I kept my end of the bargain," she says, eyes gleaming. "It's time for you to keep yours."

Soul nods, and as they step into the passageway, the girl surveys him curiously.

"One more question," the girl says. "What's your name, boy?"

"... I'm Soul," he says, watching her.

Her mouth curls into an absolutely conniving grin. "... Of course you are," she says with a giggle, turning away and starting down the passageway.

Once more, he gets the feeling that he's just made a very shitty deal.

* * *

Whatever Soul had expected, it certainly wasn't this.

"Hey hey hey!" the cave exclaims, its chipper demeanor echoing along the wind. "What's up, whats up!"

Soul and Blair glance at each other, eyebrows raised, surveying the strange skull as it goes silent. Next to them the little girl, sounding tired, adds, "You have to introduce yourself."

Her exasperation towards the cave's unlikely guardian is quite the contrast to the threatening,  _blackmaily_  disposition she'd carried throughout the entirety of their desert trek, and the difference is almost comical.

She's still fucking terrifying, though, so Soul wastes no time in doing what he's told - despite the inherent awkwardness one feels when introducing themselves to a disembodied skull.

"Uh," he says. "I'm Soul. And this is Blair." He gestures to where she is perched on his shoulder.

The skull observes them for a moment in silence, until finally:

"Well hey, that's great!" it says, bouncing up and down with glee and making the ground tremor. "C'mon in! It's great to see ya!"

"Wait," Soul says, turning to the girl. "We're going  _in there_? That wasn't part of the deal."

"Oh yes," the girl says, and there's not a trace of exasperation left in her expression: only pure  _greed_.

"But don't forget!" The ground starts to quake again, interrupting her. Slowly, a pair of white fingers slides out of the sand next to the skull, extending a massive peace sign. "Touch nothing but the flower!"

" _Yes_ ," the girl begins again, glaring at the skull. "Bring me the flower, and I'll make sure you get a royal welcome back to Death City."

A royal welcome isn't what he wants, he thinks -  _belonging_  in the city would be more than enough. In any case, he senses that he doesn't have a choice, and... he's kind of curious, despite everything.

"Fine," he says. "How will I know where this flower is?"

"Oh, don't worry about that," she says. "From what I understand, it's… impossible to miss."

He glances at Blair again, who gives him a little shrug, and the two of them start to walk towards the warm light of the cave.

"Uh," he says to the skull as they pass under the spikes. "Thanks... for having us?"

"Hey hey, no problem!" the skull replies, and together, he and Blair step into the light.

As they descend the stairs, he realizes something: this place sort of reminds him of home, in the strangest way. The staircase is a mixture of desert sand and threaded gold: gilded ribbons lace through the steps, spinning through it like marble, and as the golden light from the entryway begins to fade into a deep purple light instead, the ribbons in the floor change as well, melting into that same royal purple beneath their feet.

When they get to the bottom of the stairs, Soul turns his full attention to the light bouncing around the cave. Soul can't tell where it's coming from, but it's different than the torches that line the cave walls, the soft hiss of flame echoing around them as they make their way down the hallway.

"Wow," Blair says in awe, and he agrees… until it's followed up by: "You're going through a lot of trouble for a pretty girl-"

He sputters a little. "I'm not doing this for-"

"Mhmm~," she interrupts, unconvinced.

"I'm doing this so we don't get  _murdered_  by the missing blonde triplet from The Shining up there, okay?"

"And if you happen to get your royal welcome when we get out of here, that's just a really nice side effect, hmm?" He can see her smirk out of the corner of his eye.

"... Yeah, it wouldn't be the worst," he concedes, eyes on the ground. She hums with satisfaction but falls silent as they continue to wind through the passages of the cave.

After some time, they're met with a wall of sand as the path in front of them splits into a T. Unsure of how to proceed, Soul turns to his left first, trying to focus on the strange darkness of the hallway.

As difficult as it is to explain, something about this hallway... unsettles him, makes the back of his mind twist. It's too dark, so  _black_  that he can't wrap his head around it. In the darkness, he pictures strange tendrils stretching out towards him, and strange black eyes reproducing themselves-

"Not that way," Blair says urgently. He quickly turns away, gripped by the sensation that if he stares too long, the darkness might wrap itself around his head instead.

To his right are more torches, flickering cheerily. It's an easy decision. As he ventures down this hallway, the sourceless purple light starts to shift into a soft, gentle blue, until finally the hallway opens up into a massive cavern.

All is silent as they edge into this room. The blue light crawls its way down from the ceiling, leaving the nameless, formless objects that line the walls in shadow. At the very edge of the room lies an open staircase, and at the very top, the main source of light becomes evident: a sort of plateau, up on a dais, with blue light streaming down from the ceiling.

As soon as he notices this, something odd breaks the silence. From the hallway behind him comes a strange clattering sound, like fingers tapping quickly on a table. Soul tenses in his tracks, and from her vantage point on his shoulder, Blair leans toward the sound, yellow eyes searching out the darkness for its source. She stares, eyes wide, fully embracing that very particular catlike gaze where they try to process the entire universe at once. Soul waits for her to come back to him until finally, pressed by the steadily growing volume of the clatter, he speaks up.

"You figure out what it is yet?" he mutters with almost enough sarcasm to cover up his unease.

"Mhmm," Blair affirms, blinking against the darkness. "We… should scoot over," she adds. "Just a little."

"Uh," Soul says, but he obeys, stepping to his right. "But why? Should we hide?"

"Mm," Blair says, noncommittal. "Just move over a little more. Otherwise we'll be in his way."

" _His_ …?"

As she finishes her sentence, the invisible clatter makes its way into the room. The first thing Soul sees is three strips of white, bumping along against the floor, but in the dim light, as the strips clatter past him, his brain fills in the gaps: he's looking at a  _skateboard_ , white rectangles standing out against the black body of the board, wheels revealing themselves as the source of the clatter as it moves across the rocky floor, straight down the middle of the path.

Soul barely has time to register this before the clatter stops completely, returns as the skateboard rolls backward, stopping just in front of him, almost as if it's  _looking_  at him… and then it takes off into the air, little fire jets lighting bursts of orange against the light blue hues of the room.

"H-hey, wait!" Soul sputters as the skateboard makes purchase against the wall, settling itself right in between two torches before launching itself back in his direction. "What are-"

The skateboard flies right up to him, placing itself upright, jets making it hover at eye level as it looks him over again.

"Um… hi?" Soul says, and because he's been introducing himself to everyone lately, he tries his luck. "I'm Soul?"

The skateboard is still for another moment, and then, crazy as it sounds, he's pretty sure that it  _nods_. It then lowers itself to the ground and starts to clatter away in the direction of the blue plateau.

"I think he wants us to follow him," Blair says, and because this isn't the weirdest thing that's happened to him today, Soul obeys, following the clatter into the room.

As they approach the plateau, it dawns on him that the room is full of interesting knickknacks, some more valuable-looking than others. Although the skateboard appears to be the only sentient… item, for lack of a better word, there's plenty to feast their eyes on.

Piles of gold are heaped against the walls, mixed in with other treasures. Two ruby-encrusted pistols lie atop one pile, red gems glinting as they pass. He passes by another pile with a golden frog on top, its eyes frozen wide with surprise. At one point he even sees a golden sword stuck in a stone, which he actually edges toward to inspect further before the skateboard quickly backtracks, placing itself between Soul and the sword. Soul gets the feeling that it's glaring at him.

"Oookay, I get it," Soul says, stepping away and following the skateboard towards the blue plateau where, he's beginning to suspect, lies a certain flower.

When they get to the bottom of the staircase, the skateboard pauses, nods towards the stairs, and then flies away, settling once again against the middle of the wall, white stripes aglow in the blue light. Blair jumps off of his shoulder, seeking other parts of this room to explore, so he ascends the stairs alone.

He clears the staircase quickly, eager to see what the fuss is all about, and when he looks down at the platform, what he sees is mostly… underwhelming.

On the stone sits a light pink flower, slightly wilted, its petals sagging against the rock. When Soul leans closer to take a look at it, he can't make out any sort of scent. Wincing slightly, half expecting something terrible to happen, he picks the flower up, petals like silk against his fingers. As he looks at it, waiting, heart hammering, he leans forward once more. Nothing moves, but this time he's hit by an interesting  _stench_ , one that is not unlike... Axe body spray?

He has no time to process this, however, as from behind him comes a massive  _clang_ , followed by a hiss. Stumbling backward, he almost falls down the stairs as he turns to see Blair, hair standing on end as she stares at a massive purple pumpkin lined with sapphires. From the inside, a deep, disturbing red is beginning to glow.

"Whoopsie daisie!" comes a voice that Soul recognizes, its chipper tenor echoing throughout the cavern. "It seems that you've touched something you weren't supposed to!"

"Blair, what did you  _do?_ " Soul groans, tucking the flower into his jacket pocket as he sprints down the stairs.

"Blair loves pumpkins!" she mewls apologetically as she runs toward him. The ground starts to shake, and he stumbles toward her with increasingly uneasy steps. "I just wanted to rub against it a little~"

"That doesn't count as  _not touching anything!_ " Soul yells, and as she jumps into his arms, sections of the ceiling begin to break off, great slabs of rock slamming into the ground below.

"I'm really sorry to have to do this," the cave guardian echoes again, voice rising over the crashing stone. "Buuuut, rules are rules, so I'm just going to close you in here! For all eternity! You know how it is!"

"Agh!  _No!_ " Soul yells, stumbling towards the door, thinking of a certain green-eyed person he needs to see again. "We can't stay here for-"

Mid-sentence, a small piece of rock, recently departed from its ceiling home, hits him on the head, sending his vision swimming into blackness.

This time when Soul wakes up, he can't see anything at all.

"Ugh," he groans, rubbing his head gingerly as he sits up, blinking into the darkness. "Blair? Are you there?"

"Right here," she yawns, and he belatedly realizes that she's curled up at his side. Despite his pounding head, he smiles a little. Being attracted to shiny things might be her downfall, but she's loyal as can be.

"Can you see anything?" he asks.

"Not much," she says. "I think skateboard friend is still here, though. I heard him clattering again."

"Huh," he says. "That's goo- oh. The flower." He digs into his pocket, breathing a sigh of relief when he feels it there. Taking it out, he weighs the flower in his hand. He still can't see it, even two inches from his face.

"Dunno what's so great about this thing," he mutters, tossing it up and down in his hand.

"It didn't do anything when you picked it up?" Blair asks.

"No- well, it didn't smell like anything the first time, but then when I picked it up it kinda smelled like shit-"

At this, the flower in his hand  _lights up_ , bathing them in a small sphere of gentle pink light. Soul's eyes grow wide because, as surprising as the sudden light happens to be, it's not nearly as surprising as the shrill  _"Excuuuuuse me?"_  that echoes through the room, making him nearly drop the flower.

"Uh," he says, startled. He looks down at Blair. "Did that come from the flower?"

_"_ _No, it came from the skateboard that hasn't spoken in 10,000 years,_ " the flower says, voice dripping with sarcasm. In the shadows, skateboard wheels spin in irritation. _"Of course it came from from the flower, dumbass!"_

Soul stares at it, speechless, but the flower isn't done: _"Dude. Pull yourself together. You act like you've never seen a talking flower before. If you can't handle this, who knows what kind of shock my godly form will be-"_

He opens his mouth to answer, but the flower interrupts again.  _"You know what, let's get this over with. It's been so long since someone new's had the chance to really marvel at my biceps. Step aside, mortal."_

Totally unsure of what is happening but too bombarded by the flower's stifling  _cockiness_  to properly gather his wits, Soul scrambles away. This seems to be wise as, seconds later, unfurling from the flower's base, comes a cloud of blue smoke. The cloud builds on itself, quickly transforming into a blue form that is, as advertised, about 75 percent  _bicep_ s.

Soul's jaw hangs open as he takes in the full extent of what he's looking at: the massive blue figure before him looks like he's never skipped leg day in his life - which is, of course, a figure of speech, as this guy doesn't have legs at all. Instead, an almost spectral tail extends from the center of the flower, feeding into a chiseled 8-pack, which then leads up to the chunkiest shoulders Soul has ever seen in his life. As if his douche-meter weren't high enough, the bright blue man-bun on top of his head certainly pushes it over the edge.

"Pretty impressive, huh?" the no-longer-flower says, holding his arms up and flexing.

"Uh," Soul says, staring at him.

"You're speechless," he responds sagely, swooping down and patting Soul on the shoulder. "I _do_ have that effect on people."

"Who  _are_  you?" Soul finally says, finding his voice.

"I'm so glad you asked," he says, and swooping back up to his spot above the flower, he points his thumb at himself and launches into his introduction.

"You're looking at the amazing, the incredible, the indestructible Black*Star!" he screeches, making Blair arch her back slightly at the sound. "The one and only all-powerful  _genie_ , here for all of your wishing, wanting, can't-do-it-by-your-puny-self-so-I-guess-I-have-to-help needs. Stronger than an ox, more powerful than the  _gods_ , I'm here to grant you three wishes. Anything goes, except for those old pesky acts of murder, resurrection and looooove intervention." He runs his hands down his sides and wiggles his hips in a way that makes Soul really wish he wouldn't. "But other than that, your wish is my command. You're  _welcome_."

He ends this little monologue by drawing a bright blue star in front of him with the word "black" infused on the inside and launching it up onto the ceiling, where it blinks down at them from the top of the cave.

"Uh," Soul says again, feeling dizzy. "I... don't think I get it."

"They rarely do," Black*Star says, wiping an imaginary tear from his eye. "Listen pal, all you need to know is, you've  _never_  had a friend like me. I can make your wildest dreams come true - fame, fortune... a new outfit-" He eyes Soul's yellow jacket with more than a little judgement, and Soul blanches.

"What the-"

"Anyway, what I'm saying is," Black*Star says, steamrolling through what Soul's about to say. "I can do it all. Whatever you want, wish for it and it's allllll yours!" He laughs at this, circling up to the ceiling and backflipping back down the cave walls.

Soul surveys him for a moment, thinking of Black*Star's overconfidence. Thinks of his own recent failures in the art of the deal, and realizes with a jolt that right now, he knows how to make a really good one.

"Huh," Soul says with a chuckle, leaning back as Blair looks at him curiously. "I… don't think I believe it."

The tension is sudden and palpable. "...What?" Black*Star says, going very still and turning to face him.

"You're all talk," Soul continues, jeering. "I can totally tell. Blue paint, big biceps and body spray doesn't exactly equal  _god_." Black*Star punches his fist into his palm as Soul starts to laugh.

"What do you think, Blair?" Soul asks, turning to her. "I bet he can't even get us out of this cave."

Blair seems unwilling to comment, but the skateboard comes wheeling into their sphere of light at this moment, sitting primly beside Soul.

"Ohhhh no-" Black*Star says to the skateboard. "Not you too. You stay out of this." He looks back at Soul. "You're in over your head now, puny human. Nobody's  _ever_  doubted the Great Black*Star's Power." He looks down at the flower. "Let's show 'em what we've got, babe."

_Babe…?_ Soul thinks, but before he can question the use of pet names on a  _flower_  any further, Black*Star is grabbing him and Blair, tucking them under his armpits, and speeding toward the ceiling.

Soul squeezes his eyes shut as they slam through the top of the cavern and up into the frigid desert night.


	4. These guys don't appreciate I'm broke

As strange as falling down may have been, falling  _up_  is significantly stranger.

When the group of them - genie, cat, and grouchy human - burst through the sand, it's into broad daylight. Apparently he'd gotten a full night's sleep while he was conked out. Soul tries to get his bearings as they skid sideways across the sand, sliding to a halt into a small dune.

"Gooooood morning," Black*Star croons, dropping Soul and Blair unceremoniously onto the sand. Blair lands on her feet, but Soul lacks the necessary reflexes for that, so he greets the sand face first.

Rolling over and grumbling, Soul takes stock of any injuries and, after shaking sand out of his hair and concluding that the only thing injured is his pride, he turns and notices that the skateboard has escaped with them.

"Huh. Nice," Soul says, nodding at it.

"IIIII wouldn't be saying that if I were you," Black*Star says as he stretches out his shoulder - an important thing to do when one has just strong-armed their way through a few tons of sand.

"... Why?" Soul asks warily.

"He only comes along on these trips when he thinks it's gonna be extra dangerous," Black*Star says. "He's  _supervising._ " To Black*Star's right, the skateboard settles into a dune, going still.

"... Supervising," Soul repeats.

"Yeah," Black*Star says. He lowers his voice to a whisper. "Poor guy's got this idea in his head that he's like, the God of Death or something. He's always trying to poke his head in when things get hairy."

Soul stares at Black*Star dryly for a second before replying, "Yeah, having delusions about being a god is pretty crazy."

"I know, right?" he says, stretching his other shoulder now. Soul rolls his eyes. "Anyway - onto your next two wishes-"

"Next _two?_ " Soul interrupts, putting on his most innocent face. "What do you mean? I didn't wish to get out of there - you did that on your own."

There's a pause, and then realization flares in Black*Star's eyes.

"Hey, what the hell! You tricked me!" But he's already laughing. "Shit." He floats over and claps Soul on the back. "That's pretty funny, dude. I like you."

He reaches in for a fist bump, which Soul returns with a grin.

"But - no more  _bullshit_ ," Black*Star says, pointing an accusatory finger. "It's three real wishes or bust, now."

Soul nods. "Yeah, I know. I'll play the game."

"Oookay, so! What'll it be?" Black*Star asks. "Infinite money? A sweet car? A T.V. that plays any show you want?"

For the first time, Soul really thinks about the opportunity that's been laid before him. Honestly, after being the black sheep for so long, all he really wants is to belong somewhere. But... how does one  _wish_  to belong?

He's stumped, and so instead he asks, "What would you wish for?"

Black*Star starts to laugh again. "You are  _funny!_  You know what? Nobody's ever asked me that before, but I totally think about it all the time!"

"...And?"

"I'd get a totally huge  _gym_ ," Black*Star says immediately, stars coming to light his eyes. "With all the best machines, and no wait times… but with enough people still around to admire the goods." He flexes again and winks.

"Dude," Soul says, trying not to cringe. "Don't you work out enough? What do you even need a gym for?"

"Hey, you try working out inside a flower!" Black*Star retorts. "It's not easy when you've got phenomenal cosmic power and an itty bitty lifting space!" His face falls a little. "Nah, but honestly, I'd probably wish… to bring everything back to normal." He glances down at the flower. "Back to what things were like before I became a genie."

"You don't  _want_  to be a genie?!" Soul asks, dumbfounded.

Black*Star looks at the flower for another second, and then back up at Soul. He starts laughing again, but it doesn't feel as sincere.

"Of course I want to be a genie!" he says, punching the air with his fist. "It's awesome! I get to throw around sick power all day! But... I have to answer to  _other people._ I'm not about that. Genies are… kinda like prisoners, you know?"

"Huh," Soul says. "That's… pretty true, actually."

Black*Star's eyes flit to the flower again. "Yeah, it uh… wasn't me who thought of that."

"... Anyway," Soul says, putting his increasingly nagging suspicions about this flower to the side. "Yeah, I guess you kind of are a prisoner. Is that why you have those handcuff things on your wrists? Is that a genie thing or something?"

Black*Star looks down, confused. "Handcuffs?" He lifts them up. "Dude, these are  _Fitbits!_ "

"Are you kid-" Soul says, then stops. "Wait. Why do you have two?!"

"Um,  _duh_ ," Black*Star says, puffing out his chest. "The daily goal for a Fitbit is 10,000 steps, right? When I found that out, I was like, 'psh, I could do  _twice_  that.' So I bought two! 20,000 steps a day, a workout regimen for the godly!"

Soul stares at him. "That's not…" He stops, then restarts. "And you don't… have..."

_Legs_ , he almost says, but as he watches Black*Star admiring his prizes, gold wristbands glistening in the sun, he decides that he won't be the bearer of bad news just yet.

"Anyway, back to it," Black*Star says. "What do you wanna wish for? Some way to get outta this desert, maybe?" He points at the sand with one hand and fans himself with the other.

" _I_  think I know something he might want to wish for," Blair pipes up, rubbing against Soul's leg. Her tone of voice gives everything away, and his transition from curious to crabby is instantaneous.

"Shut up, Blair," Soul grunts, kicking at the sand with his other foot and trying to quell the very annoying kernel of hope stirring in his chest.

"What is it?" Black*Star asks.

"Go on, tell him," Blair says, nudging him. "Maybe he can help."

"He can't-"

"I can do anything," Black*Star says. "Lay it on me."

"Ugh," Soul sighs. "There's just... a girl-"

"Weren't you listening before?" Black*Star says, and all of the hope vanishes. "I can't make anyone fall in love with you, dummy!" He sees the look on Soul's face and lightens up a little. "As much as I would love to help you out in that department, my dude, I cannot."

"...Nah," Soul says. "I wouldn't really want that, anyway."

"Howeverrrrr, "Black*Star says with a wink, nudging him. "There's always a way around these things. Let me be your  _love doctor._ "

"Uh." Soul can't think of anything he's ever wanted less. "No, thank you."

Black*Star ignores him and puts on his most impressive thinking face, scratching his chin idly.

"Man, I feel like this is such a  _human_  thing," he says with a shrug. "People always make this stuff so complicated. Does she like you? Why can't you just walk up to her and tell her how you feel instead of tiptoeing around?"

"I couldn't tiptoe around her even if I wanted to," Soul sighs.

"Why?"

"I can't get back into the school," he explains. "Everything's all closed off, where she is. To even get to see her again I'd have… to be..."

And like the strike of a match, an idea comes to him. It's a little reckless, and probably insane, but it  _burns_.

"Black*Star…" he says, glancing at Blair, and then at the skateboard, and then back at the genie. "I... think I might have my first wish."

"Sweet," Black*Star says, cracking his knuckles. "What is it?"

Blair's looking at him curiously, and he knows that he hasn't thought this through at all, hasn't weighed the options, but when it comes tumbling out of his mouth, it feels...  _natural_ , somehow. There's something effortless about it, a gravity that's pulling him in.

"Can you… make me a weapon?" he asks.

There's a beat of silence, and then Black*Star's face splits into a grin.

"Hah,  _yeah!_  Of course I can!" he says. "That an official wish?"

"...Yeah," Soul says. He can't really explain it, but this feels  _right._  Like a dollop of guacamole on a stolen food truck burrito.

"What kind do you wanna be?" Black*Star asks.

"Mm. Just… something cool."

Black*Star grins again, and puts his fingers up, preparing to snap them.

"... Leave it to me."

* * *

"What do you mean, he's  _gone?_ "

The question falls to the marble floor, the last word echoing down the hallway. Maka stares at Medusa in disbelief, barely keeping her rage contained behind her scowl.

Medusa, for her part, responds with the aloof condescension that Maka has come to expect from her, and it only makes her more angry.

"As I said, he's not in the dungeon." Her tone is sickly sweet, and Maka knows it well: it's the voice she uses when she's trying to put on her charms, to talk her way out of something.

"Not in the dungeon! Ahahahah!" squeals the bird on Medusa's shoulder, X-eyes bulging. Maka cringes, but Medusa smiles, tossing a peanut up for the bird to catch in its mouth. Its cackles morph into a little coo.

"I'm sure he's around here somewhere," she adds, passing by Maka and starting down the hallway.

"W _hy don't you know where he is_?" Maka says, rounding on her heel to catch up to Medusa. When she doesn't answer, Maka adds, "What did you do with him?"

"What, precisely, are you implying, my dear?" Medusa's tone is light, but there's a menacing chord lurking beneath.

Maka suppresses a shiver. "What I'm saying is, you wanted to bring him here for apparently no reason-"

"He's a criminal," Medusa says lightly.

"He's a baddo!" squawks the bird. "A big ole baddo!"

"He's a  _good person_ ," Maka counters. She does not think about the fact that she is, in part, arguing with a bird. "And if you won't tell me…" She turns to Medusa and holds her gaze. "I'll find out wherever you've put him myself."

As she turns around and storms up the stairs to her room, Medusa's yellow stare burns into her back.

Maka slams to the door to her bedroom with more force than she'd actually intended, causing a couple of books on the bookshelf against the wall to topple to the ground. She picks them up and puts them back on the shelf with a huff, crossing the room to the balcony that overlooks the back garden.

Staring down at the cactuses, she can feel her face burning, the anger refusing to recede.

"You're  _not_  a bad person," she says to the garden. "You didn't even get a chance to explain. It's not fair."

The garden swims before her eyes, the injustice of the situation feeding her frustrations, making them spill over. But through the blur, accompanied by a rustle in the trees, appears a dark purple form.

"Blair?" she says, and sure enough, with a jump and a meowl comes the infamous black cat herself, landing deftly on the balcony at Maka's feet. "What are you doing here?"

Blair nudges against Maka's legs and the blur stirs in her eyes again. "You escaped, didn't you? You clever lady."

And in the way that cats so often do, Blair struts into Maka's bedroom like it's her own and sprawls out on the bed, purring.

"Make yourself at home," Maka says wryly and, with some of her hope rekindled, she reaches down and scratches behind Blair's ears like she'd seen someone else do recently. "Hey, listen. I'm gonna go find your other half."

Blair perks up instantly, butting against her hand, and then jumps off the bed to wait at the door.

"Oh, you wanna come, huh?" Maka says with a laugh, wiping a tear away with the back of her hand as they edge into the hallway. "All right, then. After you."

* * *

Everything is  _sharp._

His whole worldview feels different. Somehow, everything seems clearer than before, easier to perceive, easier to navigate.

Standing outside his little tent, Soul holds his arm to the side, concentrates, and watches it morph into a red-and-black blade at his side.

Blair's gonna love how easily he can cut fish.

"Oooookay, I'm _bored_ ," Black*Star grits, yawning very obviously as he lies on the roof with his hands behind his head. "I think you've got the hang of it. Let's  _do_  something."

"...Wait," Soul says, looking around. "Where's Blair?"

"Dude, she got bored, too," Black*Star says, sitting up. "She went to the school like half an hour ago."

"What?! She went to the  _school_? How did I miss that?"

"You were too busy  _primping_  to notice," Black*Star says, floating toward the stairs. "And I'm going with her. Let's go matchmake you with your meister girlfriend."

"Agh! She's not my- and I'm not… ready," Soul says, prickling. Black*Star sighs sympathetically and then floats over, putting his hand on Soul's shoulder.

"You're never gonna be totally ready for anything," Black*Star recites, putting his finger in the air. "Sometimes, you just have to jump in headfirst and hope for the best."

Soul stares at him. "... Let me guess, you didn't come up with that one either?"

"Nope!" Black*Star declares proudly, before shrinking back into the flower. "Now _let's go!_ " he adds, petals muffling the sound.

"Alriiight," Soul says, heaving a sigh of his own as he tucks the flower into his pocket.

In the distance, the shadow of the school looms, more welcoming - and terrifying - than it's ever been.

Crossing the town and making his way up to the gates is remarkably lonely, especially without Blair. In his quest of Belonging, he's not sure that he's off to the best start.

He looks up and down the gate and realizes that he has no idea how to get in until, from the shadows behind him, comes a familiar clatter.

"What are you doing here?!" he hisses, but the skateboard ignores him, instead smashing straight into his ankles.

"Ow!" he yelps, but when he jumps, the skateboard slides in underneath his foot. Soul pauses, leg placed on the body of the skateboard.

"... _Oh,"_ he says, putting the pieces together. _"_ Are you sure?"

The skateboard responds by slamming into his other ankle. "Jeez, alright!" he yells again and, continuing with his recent habit of not thinking things through, he puts both feet on the board and braces himself.

The last time he'd tried this, out in the desert, he hadn't been too successful at actually riding the board. He'd sat on it to get back to the city, which Black*Star had mocked him for incessantly.

The skateboard  _does_  seem to empathize with his unease, however. When the jets start to flare, they're on a low setting, and slowly but surely, they manage to clear the massive walls with the winning combination of patience and internal combustion.

Once inside, he finds himself in a central courtyard with stairs leading up to a grand set of doors. When he steps off the skateboard, it flips itself up into his hand so quickly that he barely catches it.

"Oh, right," Soul says, holding the end of the board. "I guess you can't really clatter around in here, can you?" He picks the board up and tucks it against his hip, ascending the stairs nervously.

As he pushes one of the front doors open, he takes in the grand ceilings, the spotless floors, and the torches that line the walls. He's also got a weather eye out for creepy little girls.

At the moment, however, the hallway is empty, and so he edges forward, very conscious of the sentient objects at his side and in his pocket. He tiptoes to each side door, glancing into the rooms. Silence rings in his ears so loudly that he feels the need to break it.

"Maka?" he half-whispers into the next room.

"Can I help you?" comes a voice behind Soul, and he jumps, wheeling around to see a tall man with fairly long red hair, a black tie shaped like a cross, and a very distrustful expression.

"Oh, uh – hello," Soul says, shuffling from one foot to the other. "Yeah, I'm just… looking for someone?"

It's not even a lie, but it sounds like one.

"And who would that be?" the man asks, eyes narrowing.

He decides to tell the truth, this time, and it is a mistake.

"… Maka Albarn?" he says, because he knows her whole name, now, and he definitely doesn't hate the way it sounds on his lips.

He definitely  _does_  hate the way the man's face settles into a manifestation of  _deep_  suspicion, surveying him with more and more distaste.

"Really," he says. Soul, completely at a loss for what to do, simply nods. The man leans in, hands on his hips. "Would you mind telling me who you are, and why it is that you're looking for my daughter?"

"Your…" Soul's mouth falls open.

Red hair, womanizer: these were the things he'd known about Spirit Albarn before this moment. Things he had forgotten, and now remembers with staggering clarity. As Soul stutters, he thinks he can add 'Overprotective Father' to the list.

As he tries to figure out what he's going to do, a very familiar voice saves him.

"…Soul?" Footsteps race down the stairs at the end of the hallway.

"Maka?" Soul says when she comes into view, followed by, "Blair?!"

"Meow?" says Blair, because she is, of course, a perfectly normal, non-magical cat, and that is the only thing she knows how to say.

The mayor of Death City is very confused, torn between lingering suspicion over Soul, joy over seeing his daughter happy… and the very obvious, pressing need to pet this cat. Soul watches his eyes flicker between the three of them until ultimately – unfortunately – suspicion wins out.

"What's going on here? Who is he?" Spirit asks Maka.

"This is Soul," she says, smiling at him as she says it. "He's my… friend."

Her hesitation before 'friend' simultaneously sends heat into his face and makes Spirit's face freeze.

"We… met in the city," she continues.

"Oh, yes, the secret jaunt into the city," Spirit says stonily.

Maka's gaze turns steely. "Speaking of which," she says, "Medusa brought him here and locked him up for no reason."

Spirit is momentarily distracted from his suspicions. "I… didn't authorize that," Spirit says, puzzled. "But… I'm sure she had a good reason."

"She  _didn't_ ," Maka says. She's now looking back at Soul, and then just behind him, eyes wide, but he can't understand what she's trying to tell him.

"I can assure you," says a silky voice from behind Soul. "I certainly did."

Maka's wide eyes narrow instantly.

When Soul turns around, he sees someone… uncannily familiar, but also unfamiliar because… they  _couldn't_ be the same person.

"The boy is a public nuisance," the woman, who he can only assume is Medusa, says, gliding past him to stand close –  _too_  close, Soul would say – to Spirit. "I've been getting reports from all over the city," she says, and Soul watches suspicion cement itself into Spirit's face once more. "Stealing food, stealing—"

"Food is the only thing I steal," Soul mutters, and everyone looks at him.

"...Straight from the horse's mouth," Medusa says with a little smirk.

"Because he  _has_  to," Maka says. "He has nowhere to go. He's all alone here except for his cat."

She takes a moment to fix her gaze on Spirit, whose eyes flicker down to Blair with a wistful expression.

"They need a place to stay," Maka says.

There's a moment of silence.

"I know what you're asking," Spirit says.

"It's impossible," Medusa says smoothly. Maka glares at her. "You know the rules."

" _SQUAWK!_ The rules!  _SQUAWK!_  The rules!" the bird on her shoulder squeals.

"If he's not a meister or weapon, he can't stay," Spirit says gently, as he reaches forward and stuffs a peanut in the bird's mouth.

"It's a  _stupid_  rule," Maka says, grimacing at both the statement and the bird's choking noises. "Just because he's not—"

"Um," Soul says.

"—not someone that fits into your little  _system_  –"

"Um," Soul says again, a little louder.

"It's not because we're trying to be exclusive, sweetheart—"

"Hey, uh, 'scuse me—"

"Well you're doing a  _bad job_  of not being excl-"

"Hey! This isn't a problem!  _I'm a weapon!_ " Soul explodes.

The conversation comes to a grinding halt as the three of them (four, including the bird) turn to stare at him.

"… You are?" Maka says.

There's a conflicted emotion playing across her face that he can't read - a little sad, but also a little… hopeful? Behind her, Spirit is still looking doubtful, but it's Medusa's face that he really remembers, in that moment. Her eyes are alight, a twisted grin spreading across her face.

It reminds him of a little girl, in a dark passageway, and in Medusa's expression, he imagines hearing those sinister words anew: " _of course you are_."

"… Prove it," Spirit says into the silence.

"Papa-" Maka cuts in.

"No… it's okay," Soul says.

Everyone's eyes fix on him, and he takes a deep breath. Closing his eyes, he concentrates, and does what he has known how to do for exactly one morning.

He flings out his arm and turns it to steel.

When he opens his eyes, the quiet smile Maka's giving him makes him melt a little. When he sees the look Spirit's giving him, though, he freezes up again.

"All right," Spirit says, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Welcome to the Academy, kid. We've never accepted someone into the school so… late, before, but-" He glances at Maka. "I think we can make an exception."

Maka smiles wider, and Soul blanches.

"Grab your things, and I'll have a student show you to your room," he says. As Soul hikes up his backpack – holding ground for literally all of his possessions - Spirit holds up a hand.

"One more thing," he says, and Soul nods seriously.

"Can… can I please pet your cat?!" Spirit croons, shuffling his shoulders and looking down at Blair with googly eyes.

"Um," Soul says. "Yes?"

And because Blair is both a loyal friend and a serial  _glutton_  for attention, she leaps right up into Spirit's arms, nuzzling his face amidst an endless stream of "Who's a good kitty, you are! that's right, who's the pwettiest girl in the world? who's my wittle catnip—"

"Welcome to the –  _SQUAWK!_  – Academy!" the bird on Medusa's shoulder shrieks, making Soul jump. Innocent as it is, something about the greeting sounds menacing, and it is enhanced by the shrewd, calculating expression on Medusa's face.

"Yes," she says, turning to leave. "Welcome indeed."

Maka, fortunately, does not miss this exchange. As Medusa walks down the hallway, Maka catches Soul's eye and mouths " _We'll talk later_ ".

And so Soul allows himself to be led down the hallway into a whole new world, where maybe, despite all of the uncertainty and the suspicion and the strange, screaming birds, this could become a place where he belongs.


	5. A dazzling place I never knew

Everything about this place is just a little bit  _extra_.

As Soul walks up the stairs, he realizes that some parts of the school strangely remind him of the cave he'd just escaped - torches on the walls, intricate marble work in the stairways. When he reaches his room, a black door with a silver number 42 under the peephole, he's struck with another strange feeling of duality. Looking at the door to his new home, something about it feels… both old and new. Uncanny and unfamiliar.

With all of the finality and symbolism that stepping over a threshold can bring, he opens the door.

The room is a single bedroom, and it's typical dormitory fare: gray brick walls, a stark and simple mattress, clean but worn wooden floors. However, because it's The Academy™, with all of its we-promise-we're-not-exclusive splendor, some extra design touches do make it a tad more homey: deep red curtains line the large window, and a black chandelier hangs from the ceiling.

"Pretty fancy," Soul says as he sets down his backpack and the skateboard. Shutting the door behind them, he looks down. "Uh… make yourself at home, I guess? Do you need anything?"

He doesn't know how far skateboard hospitality should extend, but it seems able to manage quite easily on its own, setting itself against the wall by his closet, right in between the doorstop and the corner of the wall. As for the flower in his pocket, it lies silent, for now, and he takes a moment to appreciate this brief beautiful moment devoid of  _noise._

Just as he's starting to settle in, a tentative knock sounds at the door, making him look up from the backpack he'd only just unzipped.

"Uh… who is it?" he says, on guard after the whole exchange downstairs.

"It's me," comes the response, and without his permission, that mixture of newness and nostalgia and anticipation fills his chest again as he swings open the door to find Maka and Blair standing there.

"...Hey," he says, and he hopes it sounds cooler than he feels. He's not entirely sure that he's successful, as Blair gives him a very conspicuous eye roll from where she sits at Maka's feet.

"Thought you might like your cat back," Maka says with a smile. Blair bounds up to him and winds around his feet with her little cat smirk.

"Actually, I was gonna tell you you could keep her," he says with a glare at Blair. She sinks her claws into his socked feet and he winces.

"Uh huh," Maka says. When he looks up, she's sporting an identical smirk to the one Blair is wearing. "Well, Papa's the one who held us up, so you might have to take it up with him."

He smiles, but it's strained, as he thinks back on his knack for terrible first impressions.

"...Can I come in?" she asks, smile faltering slightly, and there's something odd in her voice that he can't place.

"Oh, uh, yeah," he says, standing aside so she can pass. His heart does a little backflip at the sight of her sitting on his bed and, having just meditated on the presence of Overprotective and Already Distrusting Fathers in the vicinity, he makes a conscious decision to leave the door open.

As he turns around to face her, however, he's not prepared for the pillow that comes flying towards him. He suddenly considers using his second wish on  _better reflexes_  as it hits him square in the face.

"You  _idiot,_ " he hears her say with his face full of pillow. When he wrenches it away, he's staring at an arms-crossed, shoulders-tensed Grouchy Maka.

"What the hell was th-"

"Why didn't you _tell me_  you're a weapon?" she cuts him off, and now he realizes what he couldn't recognize in her voice before - expertly veiled  _irritation_. "We could've fought Free, we could've taken all of those guys down. You wasted a perfectly good opportunity for us to fight."

She lifts her nose in the air and he sputters at her for a moment before finding his voice.

"Oh yeah, sure,  _I'm_  the one who should have mentioned something," he says, irritation building. "How about you, miss  _mayor's daughter?"_ He joins her in the Grouchy Arms Crossed Club, the two of them scowling at each other from opposite sides of the bed.

"That's  _totally different_."

"Uh, okay, sure, if you mean in the  _'not different at all'_ sense," he says, rolling his eyes. "What if something had happened, and then your fucking  _Dad_  - who loves me already, by the way - comes calling and I don't even know who you are and…" He won't think about the rest. " _No, thanks_."

"... You're worried about my dad liking you?" she asks, a smile starting to crack through her ire. He chokes on nothing, and Blair watches him swallow it with a very knowing grin on her face.

"'Cause he's the  _mayor_ , obviously," he grouses.  _And because his daughter is a really good fighter and looks really great in a skirt, okay, whatever._ He is eager to change the subject, and everyone in the room watches him grasp at anything else to say. "Why do you think we could have fought them, anyway?! I thought meisters and weapons have to be, like, compatible to fight, or whatever."

He shakes his head, because the small amount of knowledge he has about this is profoundly embarrassing. But suddenly, for reasons totally incomprehensible to him, Maka's the one looking embarrassed, face reddening as she stares at her feet.

"I…You're right." She looks up at him, wrapping her hands around her feet for something to hold on to. "I just... had a feeling it would work."

"A feeling," he repeats.

" _Yes_ ," she says, defensiveness ramping back up. To distract her, he asks something that's been nagging at him since he first cleared the walls.

"Can't… Can't you only work with one weapon at the Academy, though? Isn't your partner like, your school soulmate or whatever?"

Her anger is definitely fading, now, a wry smile coming to take the place of her grimace. "...Yes, that's the rule," she hedges. "But… I don't have a weapon."

" _What?_ " He gapes a little as she nods. He tries to fight it, but all of the hope he'd felt back in the desert with Black*Star comes rushing back.

"I wanted to talk to you about that, later," she says. "But for now, I just wanted you to know… I wish you had said something before. Like,  _way_  before. You... could've come here and we would've taken you in."

She glares at him again, but it's gentler than before. Sort of like how he glares at Blair.

"...Ugh," he says, tossing the pillow back at her, which she catches easily. "I was fine out there. I… my life was harder before I came to the city." She looks up at him quizzically, but doesn't press that particular point.

"Still," she says. "You should have said something."

He doesn't look at Blair, because he knows that Maka will see him do it. He wants to explain, to tell her that his weapon-ness is a farce, a gift given to him by the very loud, very secret flower-dweller in his pocket. But he can't. Instead, he clambers onto to his bed, and into a habit that deeply unsettles him:

He lies.

"I… didn't wanna say anything," he says, hating the way his stomach clenches as he says it.

"Why?"

"I, uh- nobody knew about it, before. Not even Blair." A half-truth. His stomach unclenches a little, but not enough. "I didn't- I wasn't-"

He takes a deep breath, and lets the words trail off, because between silence and lies, silence is more palatable.

Out of the corner of his eye, Maka is looking at him with that same expression, eyes narrowed slightly. "You… don't have to tell me, if you don't want to," she says, still watching him closely. "But I do have some more questions for you."

"...Fine." He fully settles into his spot at the foot of the bed, crossing his legs and facing Maka.

"So uh," she says, smiling a little as she looks up from the mattress. "To start… I didn't get the chance to give you a welcome."

"Oh," he says, rubbing his neck. "Yeah. Thanks."

"What do you think of it, so far?" she asks. "The Academy."

"It's okay," he says, to which Blair gives him another fantastic eyeroll, because they both know how much he's dreamt about being here, behind these walls. "Definitely not boring."

Maka smiles wanly. "Yeah. About that. I see you've already made a few friends." She looks at him seriously, her arms tensing around her knees. "And I wanted to ask you about Medusa."

He tenses at this as well, confused about his own connections with this woman.

"She seems… really familiar," Soul hedges.

"I'm not surprised," Maka says. "She's always poking her nose in places it doesn't belong."

"She's really… kinda scary," he admits, and Maka nods.

"She's a witch," she spits. "...Well, she's not  _actually_  one," she adds at the look on his face.

"Oh." But given everything he's seen, he sort of wonders if she might be.

"I'm not afraid of her," Maka says, but her fists clench. "Though I do my best to stay out of her way."

"Why?" he asks.

Maka hesitates. "She's... got a hold on Papa that I'm not fond of. She's supposed to be his advisor, but sometimes I wonder how much she's the one actually pulling the strings."

"Anyway…" She slides off his bed, and he stands as well. "That's all I wanted to know, for now. I figured I'd leave you alone for a couple of days. Let you meet some new people. But I wanted to ask if maybe… you'd like to meet up this weekend?"

He stares at the way her ears turn red. "Yes," he says immediately, and then backpedals. "That uh… sounds fine. Or whatever."

Behind him, Blair sinks her claws into his calf. He probably deserves it.

Maka smiles again, seemingly unphased by his glaring lack of charm. He mentally kicks himself. "Okay. I'll see you around."

And before he can say anything else, she's out of the the room and into the hallway.

"Reeeal smooth, kitten," Blair says a few seconds later. In the corner, skateboard wheels spin in agreement.

He falls back onto his bed, eyes on the ceiling.

* * *

In a dark room lined with dark, magical things, a door opens and then creaks shut. In silence, a hooded figure steps into the shadows, crossing its way into the room, the tread of its feet a soft patter against the marble. All is tranquil, until:

"What the hell are you  _smiling_  about?! Your face looks all freak-" The familiar sound of a peanut being shoved into an esophagus reinstills the silence.

"We've been given a gift, Ragnarok," Medusa murmurs, tugging the cloth off of the black bowl on the table.

"How is this a gift?!" he grits, after sufficiently ingesting his peanut. "And what the hell are you using this thing for?! We can't even look at him with the blood when he's in the school! And what do you want with him anymore, anyway? It's not like he's got the flower."

"It's not?" Medusa says lightly, looking at him out of the corner of her eye. "How do you suppose he got out of the cave?"

"He-" For once, Ragnarok chokes on words instead of nuts and his face erupts into its own malicious smile. "...He's got the flower."

"He does. And even without the blood," Medusa says, "we have ways of finding what we need."

She dips a finger in the blood and begins to stir it again. As the mixture turns purple, little streaks of lightning cascade down the sides of the table and into the snakes, who once again start to slither around and up the table's base.

"Go on, my eyes and ears," Medusa says, lightning reflecting in her eyes. "Find us the flower, and bring it back to me."

At her command, the snakes slither away from the table, disappearing under the door, up the walls, into all of the cracks in the room, and silence falls once more.

"And," Medusa adds as she tugs the cloth back over the blood. "He's a weapon."

"Ugh. So what?" Ragnarok whines. "Just another spoiled brat at this  _stupid_  school who thinks they're special."

"Show a little respect, Ragnarok," Medusa admonishes him, but she's grinning as she says it. "He's the diamond in the rough, remember? And I think it might be nice to make him... a little  _more_  unique _,_ don't you? _"_

Ragnarok, catching on to her hint, turns to her with another maniacal smile. The two of them look at each other and start to laugh, their cackles bouncing around the room. As soon as their laughter reaches a truly Disney villain caliber, a knock sounds at the door, interrupting them. Closing off the table with curtains, Medusa turns and opens the door a crack.

"Oh, Free," she says. "Always a pleasure."

"Have you heard anything?" Free asks, pushing past Medusa and walking in without preamble.

"I haven't," Medusa says, putting on her most placating smile. "But I knew that this journey would take her some time-"

"How much more time is this errand of yours supposed to take?" Free says, running an anxious hand through his hair. "You said it would only be a few days, and I can't run the shop without her, I can't-"

"You would do well to remember our bargain, Free," Medusa says. It's soft, the way she says it, but not necessarily kind. "She'll return safely, as promised."

For a moment, Free's face contorts in anger, but with a deep breath, it smooths out.

"We owed you a debt, and we are honoring it," he says. "But Eruka is not your pawn, Medusa. And neither am I."

"Of course you aren't," Medusa says smoothly. "I'll keep my word." She pauses. "An eye for an eye." She then feeds another peanut to Ragnarok, who chews it noisily as he jumps over to Free's shoulder.

"Ugh," Free says, holding his nose. "And can you- get this bird away from...  _you know I'm allergic_ -"

"My apologies," Medusa says, while looking thoroughly unapologetic. She holds out her hand and Ragnarok flutters back onto her arm.

"SQUAWK! Bad taste!" Ragnarok screeches. Peanut shards fly from his mouth and Free only half-manages to dodge them.

"Fine," Free says, brushing the crumbs off his shirt in disgust as he turns to leave. "But tell me as soon as you hear anything."

"Of course," Medusa says. When the door closes, the smile she's plastered on melts away along with the light of the hallway.

"Of course."

* * *

Despite Soul's initial assumptions, the Academy really  _isn't_  that exclusive.

Soul's first week passes quickly, filled with introductions to fighting, and to a plethora of interesting classmates and teachers - the creepy one with the screw in his head is especially memorable. What really strikes him in that first week, though, is everyone's inherent  _helpfulness_.

He feels like he's with someone at every moment - from the nice guy with the visor who offers to sit with him in class on the first day, to the quirky, glasses-clad fellow who chats with him on the way to lunch. Even the pompous guy with the crazy hair spikes that Maka doesn't like, Ox, had given him some useful fighting tips yesterday.

He's not sure that he belongs, just yet. But these things take time, and he gets the impression that he's on his way.

As per her word, Maka leaves him to his own devices for the week, giving him space, letting him ease into this life without her at his side every second. But he finds himself searching her out in class, looking for where she is, and takes comfort in the fact that despite her physical distance, he can kind of sense her there, smiling, supporting him from afar.

When he wakes up on Saturday after a week of learning and fighting and surviving, he's more than ready to spend a nice, relaxing day with a cute meister.

"...This is what you meant by  _meet up_  this weekend?!"

In an open room with a wooden floor and a massive mirror, almost like a ballet studio, Soul stares at Maka as she stretches her arms above her head.

"Well… yeah?" She lowers her arms, looking at him like he's the one saying ridiculous things. As if it's the most obvious thing in the world to practice  _fighting_  on a Saturday when they've already been doing it all school week.

"I thought we could, y'know, catch a movie or someth-"

"Oh, come on - are you afraid of me?" she teases.

"Of you? No," he says. "Of your right hook? Absolutely."

She laughs. "Oh, that's what you think we're doing? Listen, I… don't wanna fight with you," Maka says. "I wanna fight…  _with_  you. You know?"

He cannot distinguish any alternate meanings between those two identical sentences. "I  _don't_  know."

"Um," she hedges, finger on her chin. "You've never had a meister before, right?"

"Definitely not," he says.

"So… you've never… matched wavelengths before, then?"

"I…" He hates admitting it. "I don't even know what that is. We didn't talk about it this week, did we?"

"Mm, I guess not," she says. He gets the feeling they've backtracked on things a bit this week. Held back on divulging things that he probably needs to know, so as not to overwhelm him.

"So, matching wavelengths is something people can do before they fight, to see if they're compatible. It's sort of like… letting your souls talk to each other. It's what happens before something called resonance, where you can actually hear what the person's thinking."

He raises an eyebrow at her and she laughs. "C'mon, it's way cooler than it sounds. Here. I wanna try something."

She walks over to him, and he can read the determination in her eyes just before she closes them.

"Breathe, okay?"

Not an easy feat with her standing only a foot from his face, but: "Okay." He closes his eyes and waits for further instructions.

"Um. I want you to think about… me."

He starts to smile, and opens an eye to find that she's got an eye on him, too, and a red tinge across her cheeks. "Hey. No peeking."

"Sooooorry," he says, closing his eye again.

"Okay. Here, give me your hand and breathe."

He reaches his hand out and she takes it, placing it palm up in the center of her chest. Soul does the logical thing and splutters about it. "What are you-"

"Relax," she says, but he can still hear laughter in her voice. "And listen."

Listening  _is_  something he knows how to do, and so he takes a deep breath and focuses on the rhythm of her heart, swift and steady. After a moment, she leans forward and gently places her hand on his chest as well, and they listen together.

"You remember that all souls have a shape, right?"

"Yeah."

"Try to listen for mine."

He catches on to it almost immediately. It sounds…  _strong_ , her soul. Stubborn and fierce… and honest. It makes him waver, makes him try to tuck the parts of himself away that he doesn't want her to see.

"It's okay," she says, and he peeks again to see a soft smile settled onto her face that nearly melts him. "You don't have to tell me everything, you know. Just listen."

And so he does, and as he listens, there's a sort of humming warmth that starts to fill him up, heat trickling through his chest like a waterfall in a stream. It's building, growing stronger with time, the heat spilling through him, reaching out, and suddenly he can  _feel_  what he's been listening to, the steady hum of her soul entwining with his.

" _Transform_ ," she whispers, and he can hear the smile in her voice, but suddenly he can't tell whether he's hearing her in his head or out loud. It startles him so much that the mental connection slips.

"It's okay," she says. "Just focus on what you need to do."

Letting the warmth in his chest guide him, he wills his mind to focus, remembering the feeling of turning his arm into a blade and trying to apply it to his entire body.

"Take your time," she says. He might need to; this feeling is so  _intimate_ , and so incredibly distracting. "You still have to focus, though," she teases, catching on, and some of that warmth rises into his face.

_"_ _Whaaaaatever,"_  he says back, focusing back on the task at hand to mask his chagrin. With renewed enthusiasm, he thinks about it and mimics the feeling of transforming, stretching it so that his entire body is consumed, and -

He transforms, landing deftly into Maka's palms and staring up at her, and she's so surprised that their connection cuts off and she almost drops him.

"Hey, what the-"

"Sorry, sorry!" she says, and she starts to laugh, placing his handle on the floor as she doubles over, and she's so overcome that she laughs for another few seconds, looking down at the ground. When she looks up at him, however, there's a wetness in her eyes.

"Oh god. Are you-"

"I'm okay," she says hurriedly, wiping an eye with her other hand and smiling at him. "I'm... really, really okay."

Two hours of practicing later, he finally detransforms, sinking to the floor in exhaustion.

"You're  _ruthless_ ," he says, and it's both a compliment and an insult.

"We have a lot of lost time to make up for," she says dismissively, peeling off a glove. As she does so, Blair rouses from her nap and comes over to greet them, rubbing up against Soul's back.

"Also," Maka says, rounding on him before he can even get off the ground. "I have one more thing I need to ask you. What's the deal with you and Free?"

"...What do you mean?" he says, instantly a deer in headlights.

"Well, when he captured us, he said, ' _It's not me that wants you, this time,_ ' didn't he?" she says.

Shit, he'd forgotten about that. "That's... kind of a long story."

She smiles meekly. "It's Saturday. I've got time."

He sighs and exchanges a glance with Blair, who then returns to the corner to knead his sweatshirt with extreme dedication.

This time, at least, he can tell the truth.

"When I came to the city," he says. "I ran into Free… pretty early on. I was getting some pizza-" He stops at the pointed look she's giving him. "Okay,  _stealing_  some pizza, right by that pet shop downtown. I don't even completely remember how it happened, but… he caught me, and I was pushing at him, trying to get away. And suddenly  _someone_  decided to help me out."

They both look back to Blair, who is now deeply nuzzled into a sweatshirt nest.

"She came out of nowhere, jumped on my shoulder and scratched Free across the face." He looks up at Maka, guilt etched into his expression. "As soon as he dropped me, I took off. We didn't look back at all, so I didn't even realize what had happened until the next time we saw him..."

"With the eye," Maka says softly.

"...With the eye," he agrees.

She sits there for a moment, pensive. "I wondered where it had come from," she muses. "But I don't understand. How did he get it?"

Soul shrugs. "Maybe someday we can ask him. In the meantime, he's another person I'll be avoiding."

"...Good plan," Maka says.

And with her inquisition complete, she reaches down to help him up. As they begin to leave, they look up to find Ox, of all people, wearing a smile that's even more imperious than usual.

"I'm supposed to tell you that Mayor Albarn wants to see you," he says, looking directly at Soul. "Alone."

* * *

Soul is terrified.

_Knock knock._

"Come in."

Soul opens the door and pokes his head in, eyes wide as he looks into the room.

"Um-" What's he even supposed to call him? He's never gonna call him Mayor Albarn like Ox. Mister Albarn? Mayor? Sir?

"You… wanted to see me?" He leaves off the title entirely, letting silence hang in the air instead.

" _Wanted_  is probably too strong a word, but come in," comes the reply, and despite his nervousness, Soul rolls his eyes. "Have a seat."

As he edges into the room, Spirit's Dad Glare sinks into his bones, making him slouch even further into his seat than usual. They get the usual pleasantries (or  _unpleasantries_ , in this case) out of the way, with Spirit grilling him about his progress so far, his intentions, his strengths and weaknesses - emphasis on weaknesses. But finally, they get to the real meat of the conversation.

"I really need to ask you about your weapon form," Spirit says, and Soul freezes. "We have to keep track of these things. Normally I'd ask Stein to do it -" Soul grimaces - "But I was… particularly curious about you."

"...Kay," he says, and he knows he's going to have to lie.

"When did your powers start manifesting?"

"Um… not… too long ago?" he says, trying not to wince.

"More specifically?"

"A few… years ago," he says through his teeth. He's up to his eyeballs in lies.

"And no one in your family noticed?" Spirit says. Soul almost laughs.

"No," he says. "They, uh. Only see what they want to see, usually."

Spirit looks at him carefully, as if weighing whether or not Soul is likely to tell the truth, which is, to be fair, a completely appropriate thing to consider. For this reason, Soul suddenly feels compelled to tell the truth this time.

"What's your last name, kid?" Spirit asks, and Soul immediately regrets his decision to tell the truth, but before he can stop himself, it's out of his mouth.

"...Evans," he says, and he watches recognition dawn in Spirit's face. He should have stuck to lies.

"The Evans family? As in-"

"The... musicians, yeah." Soul says, staring at his shoes. "I… didn't ever tell them. I knew they wouldn't understand."

Half-truths are flowing more freely these days.

Spirit nods at him. "They don't know you're here," he says. It isn't a question.

"No," Soul says.

"I... have to tell them you're here," Spirit says, holding his gaze.

Panic sets in. "Um- please- they're gonna make me lea-"

"I have to tell them you're here,  _but_ ," Spirit continues, "I'll tell them you're here to stay. As long as that's what you want."

"Really?" Soul asks.

Spirit folds his hands on his desk, and it reminds Soul of something his own father used to do before saying something very serious.

"I've wanted my daughter to find a weapon for a very long time," he says, and Soul's eyes widen a little. "The fact that she's found anyone, especially so close to the end is, quite frankly, a miracle. I could never take that away from Maka."

The amount of honesty Spirit is giving him right now makes Soul a little nauseous, especially faced with the web of lies he's just spun.

"But-" Spirit says, reconstructing his Overprotective Father façade. "If you ever make a move on her-"

Soul chokes a little, thinking of the previous day, the heat of Maka's hand against his chest, the teasing, the closeness of their wavelengths. "N-not a problem-" he stammers out. If she wants to take the lead in that department, well. He'll hope for his own miracles.

He senses that the time has come for him to take his leave, and as he gets up, he turns to Spirit, suddenly feeling brave.

"Um," Soul starts. "This wanting to keep me around thing… how much of this is really because of my cat?"

Spirit smiles wryly. "Half." He pauses. "More than half."

Soul chuckles. "See you around, old man."

As Soul walks out of Spirit's office, he feels more safe, more secure than he has in a long time.

Two floors up, through a crack in the wall, a tiny purple snake slithers into his room.


	6. A fool off his guard could fall and fall hard

"... What the  _hell_  happened here."

Soul stands in his doorway, recently returned from his scary Spirit meeting, and gazes at the chaos that has befallen his bedroom. The entire space has been completely ransacked: clothes everywhere, mattress askew, chest drawers pulled out and sitting halfway on the floor.

The only thing that's not out of place, sitting demurely in its corner, is the skateboard, which looks as though it hasn't moved an inch.

"Know anything about this?" Soul asks, taking the flower out of his pocket and setting it on the bed. As he turns back to the skateboard, he watches it hesitate a moment, and then slide slowly away from the wall. Crumpled in the corner, lying across the doorstop, is a dark purple snake.

"What…"

The skateboard slides towards Soul and flips up against the bed, knocking against the wood. Soul stares at it. "What are you…" The skateboard knocks at it more insistently, and Soul watches the flower wobbling on the bed. "Oh."

He picks the flower up and smells it once, then smells it again - while also trying not to smell it, as one does when accosted by the delightful stench of Axe.

"Hoooooooow's it goin'!" Black*Star comes shooting out of the flower in full-on gym attire - which consists of, as usual, no shirt and something rather horrifyingly low-rise bottoms, which Soul quickly blinks away from.

"You tell me," Soul says dryly, gesturing around the room.

"Ohoho, this is  _wild_ ," Black*Star says. "You bring your little meister friend back here so soon?" He waggles his eyebrows and Soul scowls through his embarrassment.

" _No_ ," he says, probably a little too forcefully, because Black*Star grins. "That's not… just… I think the skateboard wants to talk to you," he sighs, pinching his nose.

"Hey hey, my man!" Black*Star says, extending his fist. "Gimme some wheel!"

The skateboard seems to regard him for a minute, but then leans forward and bumps into his fist with a little click.

"Niiiice. Okay, what's up?"

The board rolls back and starts weaving its way from one side of the room to the other, bumping into various things in the room, mimicking something that looks like a chase scene. He kickflips back over to the snake and whacks it, launching it into the wall before it slides to the ground again.

"You killed it?! Nice," Black*Star says.

"But what  _is_  it?" Soul asks. "Where did it come from?"

"He says he doesn't know, but that it 'seemed to be looking for something,'" Black*Star says, adding air quotes.

"... For you," Soul says, comprehension dawning.

"I mean, who isn't?" Black*Star says flippantly, which brings Soul's hand back up to his nose. "What's that, dude?" He leans in to the skateboard. "...Huh."

"What?"

"He says that even if you'd left me in the room, it's strange that it wouldn't be able to find me right away. But I'm not surprised that it couldn't," he says, puffing out his chest.

"Why?"

"Snakes can't find flowers that don't have scents," he recites.

"...No sense, huh? Well that explains it," Soul says with a chuckle.

"Yeah, you know, cause they're all-" Black*Star makes a bunch of slurping noises with his tongue - "When they smell things."

"Oh.  _Scents!_ " Soul says. "Wait, that flower has the worst scent I've ever-"

"Hey! Don't you talk about her that way!" Black*Star says, holding up his fists. Soul stares at him.

"Uh. Sorry? Well, I was wrong, anyway," Soul says, realizing his mistake. " _You're_  the one that smells, not the flower."

"Thank you," Black*Star says, apparently placated by this insult.

"Ooookay," Soul says, adding to his mental collection of bizarre tidbits about this flower. "So the snake wanted the flower. Any idea where it came from or who would want it?" Black*Star and the skateboard shrug in tandem.

"The only person I know of who wants you," Soul says, slipping the flower into this pocket and watching Black*Star sink back into it, "is Medusa. You're staying close to me."

* * *

Despite Soul's paranoia,  _weeks_  pass with no mentions or sightings of snakes. He sinks into the consistent rhythm that school life has to offer him, gaining familiarity with the way things work, with the quirks and intricacies of soul collection, and of fighting kishin. He gains friends, too, and that ever-coveted sense of belonging is becoming a very tangible reality. At the same time, he's careful, always making sure he has the flower with him, tucked in a pocket or in his bag. It's a thin veneer of legitimacy that he's constructing, and he protects it with everything he has, especially since he knows that  _someone_  knows about his secret to success.

During this time, his lessons also become more developed and more  _intense_  and he can feel the stakes getting higher. Graduation is closing in, and he's got a lot to learn in a very short time. The pressure's on, and nothing is a better example of this than his sparring sessions with Maka.

"You're not focused."

"I  _am_  focused," he growls back, glaring up at her through one red eye.

"If you were focused, we'd be resonating," she says, tone clipped, and his eye rolls around in its metal socket. "You're holding back."

"I'm  _not._ "

But he is. He  _has_  been, because the idea of Maka being able to hear what he's thinking, the potential for letting something slip - some little knowledge tidbits about genies or skateboards or recently mauled snakes in his bedroom or the fact that he's, y'know, not  _actually_  a weapon at all - is far too great and far too terrifying. It's also why they haven't been able to resonate  _ever_ , except for that brief second weeks before.

"Fine," Maka says lightly. She's trying to act aloof, but she's not fooling anyone. She sets Soul down on the ground a little less gently than she normally does, and the clang of metal on wood reverberates up his back. He transforms out of weapon form, rubbing his side and wincing, but he can't even bring himself to gripe about it.

Normally these failed attempts are followed by some sort of confrontation, but this time, she's already tugging on her sweatshirt - the same gray one she'd been wearing when she saved him all of those weeks ago - and something about it tugs on his heartstrings.

Maka plucks at them further when she turns around, looks up at him with sad eyes, and says in a tone that's more defeated than anything else:

"You told me before that you trusted me. When you trust me enough to  _let me in_ , you know where to find me."

As she walks out the door, Soul hunches over, putting his head between his knees.

"Hrrruugghhh."

"You've gotta do somethin', kitten," Blair says, putting her head on his back.

"... I know," he sighs.

* * *

"When will they listen to my wisdom?" Black*Star says to the flower, looking down and shaking his head.

He lifts Soul's textbook-laden backpack over his head with one hand as he lies on the bed and starts moving it up and down.

"Let me spell it out for you," Black*Star continues. With each pump of the backpack, he enunciates his wisdom: "Tell. Her. The. Truth. You should've done that from the beginning, pleb. Doesn't sound hard to me."

"What do you mean  _it doesn't sound hard_?!" Soul snaps, waving his hands around. "How am I supposed to tell her that I've been lying to her for weeks? Everything she thinks I  _am_  is a lie."

"What other choice do you have?" he asks. "Keep lying? Keep not being able to do your sexy soul-talky thing?"

Soul scowls. "It's not just about that. I'm her  _weapon_. How am I supposed to tell her that the person she's been waiting so long for isn't even real?"

"She already liked you before you were a weapon," Blair says gently from the foot of the bed. "And… she might be mad, but she'll respect you for telling the truth."

A massive lump forms in his throat. Surrounded by so many lies, Soul recognizes the truth when he hears it. "Yeah, maybe."

"At least go talk to her," Black*Star says, and the skateboard nods behind him.

"It's almost midnight," Soul says. "It's not like I know where her room is."

Blair's expression morphs into something very mischievous, and he doesn't like it one bit.

"That's okay, kitten," she says as she struts toward the door, tail in the air. "I do."

* * *

"You can't be serious. This is so  _creepy_."

Maka sits up slowly in her bed, ears straining to catch the conversation carrying in from the garden. She can make out three voices, one slightly panicky and the other two  _highly_  conspiratorial.

"You're the one who said you wanted to talk to her~"

"Not like this - I'm not about to fly up to her room while she's sleeping, who do you think I am-"

Maka slides out of her bed and tiptoes to the window, leaning out to try to get a glimpse of who's talking, but she can't see. Crouching down, she clambers out onto the balcony, pulling her nightshirt over her knees in the chilly air.

"Uh, I think you're desperate, and you can, like,  _knock_  on the balcony or something if you think it's weird-"

"If I  _think_  it's weird?  _You don't think it's weird?!_ "

"Listen, I've done weirder things in the name of love, okay? So just piggyback onto your noble God of Death steed and talk to her."

A moment of silence, followed by a very loud sigh. "It's okay, I don't think you're a steed either." Another pause. "If she thinks I'm a creep after this, I'm telling her that you're in love with a flower."

The air beneath the balcony suddenly changes; a sound like a small jet engine igniting reaches her ears, and suddenly there's a pressure change, like something is rising quickly to-

She jumps up, and watches as a very familiar face slides into view, as if taking an elevator up from the garden. When he sees her standing in front of him, he looks more surprised than she's ever seen him, and his eyes widen even further as she crosses her arms and says, "You're right. It's a little weird."

" _Jesus-_ " he yelps, almost topping backwards off of… whatever it is that's just propelled him up to her. His arms start wheeling backwards, and she lunges forward and grabs onto his collar, tugging him up to the balcony.

When she looks up and sees how close his face is, she can't decide whether she wants to kiss him or slug him. Instead, she chooses her other favorite option: she nags him.

"You idiot," she says, pulling him over the balcony railing. He's definitely ashamed as he lets his legs sort of drag behind him like a rag doll. She sets him down against the cold cement of the balcony, facedown. "What are you  _doing?_ "

"Something stupid," he says, voice muffled against the concrete.

"Wait, and how did you… get up here?" She swivels around to see what definitely  _looks_  like but could not possibly  _be_  a  _flying skateboard_ , who has cooled its jets (literally) and settled itself against the railing to survey the scene. At the very least, this seems to motivate Soul to lift himself out of his pity party, as he drags himself into a sitting position.

"Uh," Soul says. "I have some… things to tell you."

She watches the board wheel its way over to her, and the two of them regard each other curiously. "I… can see that," she says. "I remember you had this with you, that first day, but I didn't realize it was… so…  _alive_."

"Yeah, it was a surprise to me, too," he says. She watches an idea strike him, watches him wrestle with whether it's a good one, and then watches him watch  _her_  in silence.

"What are you thinking?" she asks softly, because it's something she always wants to know, and something he never seems to want to tell her.

He shakes his head. "Well… I was thinking… do you wanna ride on it?"

Her eyes widen, but she smiles. "I thought you said he wasn't a steed." The way he blanches, muted in the moonlight, warms her in the chilly air.

"Yeah, well," he shrugs. "He definitely isn't, but he's… really quite selfless about doing things like that. He kinda... looks out for me."

The skateboard turns to him, then, wheeling up to him, looking almost  _flattered._ With a glance between the two of them and a sudden click, the skateboard pops open a middle compartment, transforming into a longboard… with enough space for two.

Soul stares at it, wide-eyed. "I... didn't know he could do that."

Maka smiles and stands, reaching a hand out to help him up. "I guess he's looking out for you."

From the trees beside them comes a rustling, and in a very déjà vu sort of way, Maka watches as Blair leaps onto the balcony, mewling as she rubs against their legs.

"By the way," Soul says, "Blair's the one who knew where to find you."

Reaching down to pet her, Maka replies, "She looks out for you, too."

"More than anyone," he agrees with a sigh. "Okay, you," he adds, looking down at Blair. "You hang out here for tonight, okay? Protect… you know who. Or what. Or whatever. And hang out in Maka's room… as long as that's okay?" He looks up at her.

"She's already the queen of the castle," Maka says with a laugh as Blair prances into the room and rolls over onto the floor, exposing her belly.

"Damn cat," he says without a single ounce of derision, and Maka smirks, turning to him and placing a foot on the skateboard.

"Ready to go for a ride?" she asks, holding her hand out to him.

He glances at the skateboard, and then at Blair, before letting a genuine smile take over his face. "Yeah, I am."

He steps on the board in front of her and she throws her arms around his waist, and when the skateboard rises into the air, he starts to laugh as the two of them wobble.

"Uh… I've found it's usually easier to sit, the first time," he says, and she nods in agreement.

* * *

There are so many  _stars_  out here.

As they sit side by side atop the skateboard, facing in opposite directions, the desert stretches out to infinity, white sand taking on a blue hue in the light of the moon. Somewhere beneath the sand, Soul knows, lurks that cheerful-yet-punitive cave that's given him so much.

There's a lot he's going to have to tell her.

"Are we… going somewhere specific?" Maka asks from beside him, her arm warm against his in the night air.

"Um… yeah, I had somewhere in mind," he says. "If that's okay."

"Sure." With a little sigh, she leans her head on his shoulder and slides her arm through his, linking them together. "I trust you."

As he blinks up at the sky, suddenly it seems like there are even more stars than before.

As they sit, they talk - mostly about Maka, for now - and she relives tales about growing up at the Academy, about the perks and drawbacks of being the mayor's daughter. It's something he understands better than most: the need to prove oneself without relying on status, or handouts. With every passing moment, he's slowly adding to the list of unlikely things they have in common, and he's not sure how that will affect him when it comes time to tell her.

Finally, the sand starts to morph into rocky, clay-like earth, with little bursts of greenery coming to adorn the landscape, and finally, their view transforms into a suburb, with great, sprawling houses and palm trees lining the streets.

He can see Maka looking at him out of the corner of his eye and, swallowing his nervousness, he replies softly, "Almost there."

"Take a right here," he says to the skateboard, who descends a little further from the cloud line, and he can see it, nestled in its little neighborhood, secure in its little aura of wealth and cushy comfort.

"Here," he says, pointing to a house across the street, one that he knows will be empty this time of year.

As the skateboard descends, their shoes bump against the rooftop tiles and the two of them clamber onto the roof. Behind them, the board hovers, looking curiously over their heads at the view.

"Where… are we?" Maka asks.

"Uh… this is the first thing I wanted to tell you," Soul says. "This is... where my family lives." He can't say 'my home.' It's not true anymore.

She looks over at him. "It is, huh?"

"Yeah."

She sits and waits for him to elaborate, even though he knows what she wants to ask. Her eyes seem extra green in the darkness, wide with curiosity.

"I know what you're thinking," he sighs. "I told you my life was tougher before I came to the city, right?"

She nods, and he waits for  _her_  to elaborate, but she just smiles up at him expectantly, and he realizes he's going to have to monologue.

"Just… bear with me, okay?" he sighs. "I really don't like talking this much."

She laughs, and with a tentative smile, she reaches out for his hand, threading their fingers together. "Does this help?"

"Uh. Yes and no," he says, glancing down at their hands and trying not to smile like a fool. "But... more yes than no, I think."

"Whenever you're ready."

"Okay. I know it doesn't seem like it," he says, gesturing to the grand mansion before them with his other hand, all of the lights extinguished as its occupants slumber. "And... my life  _wasn't_  tougher, in a sense. We had everything we could ever want, my brother and I. My parents mean well, but… my family's a bunch of musicians. And I really love music, but I really didn't want to be forced onto that path. I couldn't… bring myself to tell them that, and I didn't wanna give up the freedom to choose. So…"

"... You ran away," she says.

"I think… I'm good at running away," he admits. "It's easier to run than to tell the truth."

But somehow, with the strange weight he can feel coming off his chest, he's not so sure if that's true anymore.

"I like when you tell the truth," Maka says simply, and it makes him never want to tell a lie again.

"I regret leaving, some days," he says. He eyes his brother's bedroom, the top window on the right, and almost hopes that the curtains will open and he'll catch him sitting there. "I let them down."

"You let your heart decide," Maka says, turning to look at him and squeezing his hand with a small smile. "I... can't fault you for that. I did the same thing."

He realizes what she's saying, and the warmth of affection that surges into his chest mingles with the chilling guilt that's already there.

"... Yeah," he says. "Anyway. I wanted you to see it."

"You wanna stay for awhile?" she asks.

He looks up at the house, at the lifeless window panes. "Nah," he says. "Let's go home."

On the way home, night stretching across the sky like a blanket, Soul makes another dent in his truth-telling checklist.

"Hey, uh," he asks. "Does Medusa have a daughter?"

Maka looks over at him. "Um… I don't think so. Why?"

"Someone… visited me, after I got captured," he says. "She looked a lot Medusa, only a lot younger."

"...Interesting," Maka says. "Well, I don't know of any daughter…"

"I think…" Soul says. "I think it  _was_  Medusa. And… I think she wants something of mine."

At this moment, the school comes back into view, and as they draw closer to the balcony outside Maka's room, he can see a tiny purple form pacing back and forth across the tile.

Before they can even touch down, he can sense in Blair's stance that something is wrong.

"...Blair?" he asks, and she leaps up into his arms with wide eyes before jumping down to the ground and butting at his legs - in the direction of the door.

"... Is she okay?" Maka asks, looking down at Blair in concern.

"I- uh- I don't really know," he says, because he doesn't. "Maybe she's just-  _ow!_  Hungry?" He's taken a few more steps toward the door, now, and the skateboard is wheeling behind them, catching on.

"Hey, I'm sorry, I uh- I'll talk to you later, okay? There's something else I still need to tell you." He wrenches the door open and only catches a glimpse of Maka's worried face before racing down the hallway, Blair leading the way.

"What are you doing?" he hisses, and amidst his stress, he realizes that he's in far better shape than the last time he was forced to go for a run.

Blair turns and looks at him mid-scamper up the stairs, and says quietly, "The flower's gone."

" _WHAT?_ "

"Shhhh-" Blair says, resuming her run. "I'll tell you when we get back to the room."

His heart is pounding, the threat of everything he's hidden, everything he hasn't even  _told_  Maka yet coming unraveled before he has the chance to tell her.

As they race into the hallway, she begins her tale: "As soon as you left, I jumped down from the balcony to find it, and it was gone. Someone must have taken it while we were talking up there. I didn't hear or see anyone, they must have been moving-"

"Like a snake," Soul says, scowling, and he reaches out to open the door, to make a plan, to take a moment of silence in the quiet of his room.

When the door swings open, however, the room is not empty.

"Hello again," says a little girl, black bird perched upon her shoulder. Before Soul can even react, he can feel himself being shoved into the room, the door slamming behind him.

He lurches forward, falling to his knees as Blair hisses at his side. The skateboard, on the other hand, is trapped outside, and the door reverberates with a series of periodic  _bangs_  as it tries to make its way inside.

When they both look up, the little girl is gone, only to be replaced by her even creepier counterpart. Medusa surveys them both with a twisted smile, a light pink flower sitting delicately between her clawlike fingers.

"Are you looking for this?" she asks, and Soul fights the urge to hiss like Blair as he watches her hold the flower up and inspect it, a more pronounced smile curling across her face.

"Give that  _back_ ," he grits out instead, hands clenching into fists as he stands.

"Oh, there's no need for that," Medusa says. "I intend to give it back, after all."

"... Liar," he says, because he knows lies too well, these days, can hear the hesitation, the subtle pushback that comes with forcing oneself to go against the truth.

"No, really," she says. "But first, I need you to do something for me."

"... We've already made a deal once," he spits. "It didn't work out so well for me."

"Didn't it?" she says lightly. "Your own personal genie, a place to live… a love interest…" She smirks. "It seems to me like this has given you everything you ever wanted."

"... What is it that  _you_  want?" he asks, and her smile grows even more twisted.

"All I want," she says, reaching into her pocket, "is for you to eat this peanut."

He stares at her. "No" is the only thing he can think of to say, so that's what he says.

"Why not?" she says.

"Uh." He cannot get over the ridiculousness of this request. "Because it's probably poisoned."

"It isn't," she says, and she tosses it up to the bird, who nearly swallows it whole.

"Ugh, it's  _unsalted_?!" the bird screeches, and Soul stares. "What the  _hell_  would you get unsalted for, you hag?"

"Manners, Ragnarok," she says mildly, wiping peanut crumbs off of her cloak. "We have a guest."

"If he doesn't want it, I'll have the rest," Ragnarok singsongs, hopping along her shoulder.

"Yes, I  _know_ ," she says impatiently, waving him away. "Anyway. Here are your options." Soul raises an eyebrow, confused. "You will eat this peanut, or I will kill you. And then your cat. And then your meister. The choice is yours."

Soul is no longer confused.

"Let me get this straight," he says. "I eat one of your peanuts, which you assure me are not poisoned, and you will give me back the flower, and not kill anyone."

"Correct," she says. "Well, I didn't say  _anyone_." Her eyes glitter maliciously. "But I will not kill you, the cat, or the girl. You have my word." Terrifying as that little clarification is, he cannot hear any hint of a lie in her voice.

"You have to eat the whole thing before I give back the flower, though," she adds. "No scampering your way out of this one."

"...Why?" he asks. "Why do you want me to eat this?"

"You ask a lot of questions," she says smoothly. "People can't ask questions if they're dead."

"... Fine," he says, because ultimately, eating a peanut seems like a small price to pay for not getting murdered.

He walks up to her and takes the peanut, glancing at Blair for a moment, and then eats it, chewing, swallowing and opening his mouth to show Medusa that the deed is done. Nothing happens, but when Medusa's mouth curls into a malicious smile, he's getting more and more uneasy, and this prompts him to walk up and demand the flower with a more panicky voice than he might have preferred.

"Of course," she says, voice like honey, and as soon as he has the flower in his hand, he bursts into action, running for the door, but as he tries to turn the knob-

"It's locked," he says, shaking the handle. Heartbeat pounding in his ears, he turns to Medusa.

"I said I'd spare your life," she says cooly, "not that I'd let you leave."

Before he can think about it, he acts on instinct, turning away from her and smelling the flower twice. As Black*Star's familiar form begins to rise out of the flower, he steels himself.

" _Black*Star, I wish for you to get us the hell out of here!"_  he shouts, and all he hears is a faint "you got it, dude," before a cloud of black feathers appears beside him, lunging towards him as the room begins to blur around him. Soul slams his eyes shut as Blair jumps onto his shoulder.

When they both appear on Maka's balcony, terrified and out of breath, the flower is not in his hands.


	7. One jump ahead of the slowpokes, one skip ahead of my doom

"... That  _fucking_  bird."

Soul gazes down at his empty hands and then up at Blair, who's staring at him with sympathetic eyes.

"He must have snatched it," Soul says dully, answering her unspoken question. '"Before we disappeared."

Distracted as he is by his despair, it takes him a moment to notice the very bewildered silhouette of his meister, sitting stiffly on her bed with her arms crossed.

To be fair, he hadn't expected to see Maka again so soon. He  _certainly_  hadn't expected to see her so soon sitting in her bedroom, in almost the exact same state he'd left her, irritated and ready for a fight – though he sort of wonders if both of those have actually intensified a little since he'd left. It's amazing what can happen in ten minutes.

"What—how—where did you  _come from? How did you get in here?!"_  she demands, while not really waiting for an answer as she lunges to her bookshelf, takes a book and throws it at his head. "It's one thing to be on the  _balcony,_  but now you're push-"

"This  _wasn't my idea!"_  he yelps, throwing himself to the side to avoid the book barrage, immediately regretting not being more specific in his very vague request to  _get the hell out of there_. "It was—"

He almost says 'Black*Star,' and then realizes that he hasn't explained any of this to her, yet, and meditates for another moment on his piss poor timing and total lack of tact.

"Okay," he says, "I have something more to tell you, but I need to do it fast. And it's all gonna sound really crazy, but it'd be… really great if you'd believe me."

She glares at him, crossing her arms. "… I'm listening."

And right on cue, the sound of jets meets their ears as the skateboard bursts into the room, lowering to the ground.

"Glad you're okay, kiddo," Blair says, running over to rub up against the skateboard. Maka freezes, and Soul realizes that this is the first time she's ever heard Blair speak.

Despite the fact that they are clearly in crisis mode, he manages to laugh at the shocked expression on her face.

"Trust me," he says. "The cat and the skateboard aren't even the weirdest... pa…  _agh!"_

He doubles over, all good humor promptly forgotten as a sudden lurch echoes through the back of his brain, making everything blur.

"What the…" Slightly queasy, he lifts his head, trying to find something to look at, to hang on to. As he looks up, however, gaze slipping in and out of focus, the room has… transformed.

He thinks he might be dreaming. The smooth, white marble of the Academy floors has been replaced by red and black checkered tile, accentuated by that same black chandelier that hangs in Soul's bedroom. When Soul blinks, the room is gone, replaced by Maka's bedroom, but as he blinks again, something that sounds like the low tinkle of a jazz song echoes in his ears.

The three of them are staring at him in concern, Maka crossing the room to stand slightly closer to him.

"…What was that?" she asks.

He blinks at her. "You… you didn't see that?"

Maka shakes her head.

"None of you saw that?"

They all shake their heads.

He stares at the ground, unable to shake the feeling at the back of his brain, the unease slinking through his skin.

"Something's happening, I think," he says. "But I don't know what." As he says it, the skateboard jumps up again, zooming outside, and then comes blasting back into the room faster than Soul's ever seen, popping primly back into longboard mode.

They both hop on, electing to sit again while Blair claws her way into Soul's lap, and the skateboard brings them to the roof of the Academy. As they stare at the horizon, something is stirring in the distance, and it's pulling at him.

It's too far away to tell what exactly it is, but something about it feels…  _tempting_ , in a too-familiar way.

It feels... like turning left in an underground cave.

"I know where it's coming from," he says suddenly, and he starts to laugh a little as another bout of mental queasiness infects him, pulling,  _pulling_  him forward towards the strange red mass. "Agh! Why-"

"I… think it's the peanut, kitten," he hears Blair say sadly through the fog, and it brings him back to the roof, away from the desert.

"The  _peanut?"_  Maka looks down at them both.

"… Something else to tell you," he hedges, and she frowns.

"Tell me on the way," she says, eyes on the sky. "We need to warn Papa."

As they run to find Spirit, he fills her in on most of it - on the flower, on Black*Star, on the peanut, and on Medusa's role in all of this. There's only one thing he won't say, and he holds on to it, saving it for when things have calmed down. He's putting it off, he knows it, but there's no  _right time._

At the very least, finding Spirit proves to be easier than they'd expected.

"Papa!" Maka shouts after she and the skateboard have essentially decimated the door - a successfully exacted revenge, after his unsuccessful attempt at bringing down the other one - and they catch a glimpse of him between the shattered pieces of the doorframe, tied up and slumped into a chair.

Spirit tries to slink up some more in his seat, but Maka's already sprinting her way over to him before he can make much headway, untying him and getting him seated as Blair jumps up into his lap.

"... Medusa?" Maka asks, settling back against the desk.

"...Yes," Spirit replies, brow furrowed as he strokes Blair's back.

"Some  _advisor_ ," Maka spits.

"Yes... well," Spirit says, clearing his throat. "When she tied me up I thought it was going in a... very different direction." Soul and Maka shoot each other a disgusted look.

"Uh huh," Maka says, gritting her teeth and making every effort not to touch  _that_  with a ten-foot pole. "Soul thinks he knows where she is, so we're going to stop her."

"Go through the city on the way," Spirit says. "Gather up whoever you can find."

Maka looks at him for a moment, and then nods.

"You stay with the old man, okay?" Soul says, looking down at Blair with a chuckle. "Since it seems like he needs some female compan-"

" _LET'S GO_ ," Maka hisses, dragging Soul and the skateboard out of the room as Blair sends them a little salute.

* * *

The city is in chaos.

Overhead the sky is beginning to deepen to an angrier red, little black eyes stretching across the horizon, massive pupils dilating and gazing towards the city. The streets are alive with activity, all of it hazy and unpredictable as people begin to feel the effects of whatever is happening, Death City descending into a maze of screams and cackles and nervous energy.

Soul is feeling effects of his own - much more so than Maka, he notices. He stumbles every few blocks, putting his head between his legs as the strange room in his head becomes more tangible, frantic jazz music playing on a loop in his brain. He tries to mask his panic as they race through the streets, but the worried glances Maka keeps sending his way do nothing to abate his anxiety. As they reach downtown, things are even more worrisome, food trucks overturned - something he would have considered a golden opportunity before - as well as doors to stores left wide open and abandoned.

When they turn the corner to race down another side road, they reach another obstacle.

" _Eruka!"_ comes a loud, angry shout from a loud, angry source, followed by a spray of ice that Maka and Soul have to drop to the ground to dodge, skateboard bumping into their feet.

"Holy-"

"Oh." The spray stops and the two of them look up to see Free frozen in the middle of the road with a leg in the air, foot enclosed in an ice-shoe. Despite his very obvious anger mere moments ago, his face splits into an almost-smile - though the suppressed anger radiating off of him is still palpable. He walks over to them, slipping slightly each time he puts weight on his icy foot.

"Lookie here, it's my two favorite delinquents," Free says, hands on his hips as he looms over them. "What brings you to the city on this fine day? Where's the cat?"

Soul can't tell if he's kidding, very aware of the sounds of cackling and screaming building in the streets around them. He also can't tell if Free's being affected by the eyes in the sky or not, because he isn't acting like everyone else, all unpredictable and wobbly. Based on all of their previous encounters, Soul knows that shooting ice out of his foot and yelling are not explicitly strange behaviours for him.

Maka pulls them both up to stand, hands clenched at her sides.

"We're going after Medusa," she says, and when she looks at Soul, he sees what she wants and transforms immediately, red eye glinting in the strange, hazy light. She sinks down into fighting stance, glaring at Free. "Don't try to hold us up."

Free's eyes widen and then narrow, and his fists clench, too. "Medusa," he growls. A pause, then: "I'm going with you," he adds, voice low.

Soul and Maka exchange a surprised glance. He transforms back into human form, gazing at Free.

"...You are?" Soul asks.

"She owes me an explanation," he says angrily. "And if I don't like her explanation… I'll help you take her down."

This doesn't explain what will happen if he  _does_  like the explanation, Soul thinks. Maka also looks dubious, but she gives Soul a little shrug.

"We need all the help we can get," she mutters.

"Let's go, then!" Free says, still slipping on one foot as he strolls past them.

"...We need to get there fast," Maka says. "Running won't be good enough."

Soul looks at Maka, then at Free, and then turns to the skateboard, face blank.

"...You don't have a longer-than-longboard setting, do you?" he asks.

The skateboard rests immobile, clearly unimpressed.

"Yeah, I figured not."

* * *

Soul and Maka stand this time, Soul clutching his head as they edge closer and closer to the cave. His vision is blurring more frequently now, red and black floors casting checkerboards across his eyelids.

The cave isn't hard to find, since red and black eye-wavelengths are stretching from it like a wavy, deranged Bat Signal. Beneath them, they can see Free crossing the desert on a magic skateboard ride of his own, having managed to finagle his ice-powers into a board.

The closer the cave becomes, the stronger Soul's unease, and as the skateboard starts to descend, making its way closer to the desert sands, he speaks.

"How are we gonna fight her?" Soul asks, staring at the rounded form that he knows to be the cave.

"... I don't know," Maka admits, squeezing his hand. "But we'll do what we usually do, right?"

"What's that?" he asks warily.

"We trust each other," she says simply. And with a jolt, he remembers the one thing he hasn't told her.

"Um… Maka..." he says.

"I know," she says, reading into his restlessness. "I know there's something else you have to tell me. But I don't care what it is." She trains her gaze on him, and his chest is suddenly very tight. "We'll deal with it after. In the meantime, we do what we always do. We trust each other. No matter what. Okay?"

When he manages to speak again, his voice is very small. "Okay."

"And just remember-" She grabs his hand as Medusa's form comes fully into view. "When there's nothing else to do… we  _jump!_ "

Landing on sand is, ultimately, more comfortable than landing on metal. Soul also manages not to hit the sand face first this time... so really, he's making progress all around.

He only has a moment to feel good about this, however, as he looks up to see Medusa in front of them, wearing a victorious smile and, as usual, her favorite accessory - that  _stupid_  bird. Only now, the bird is bigger, one leg perched on each of Medusa's shoulders so that it looks like a screechy, ugly, peanut-venerating hat. Behind her lies the cave, its normally cheerful face lying dormant as the red waves spill out of every crevice, radiating into the sky.

"You're just in time," Medusa says, tossing a peanut straight up. Ragnarok catches it deftly in his mouth, cackling as he does so. "I was just about to make my second wish."

"Why are you doing this?!" Maka asks - without, Soul knows, fully understanding what  _this_  is.

"Silly girl," Medusa says. "Always looking for a reason, when reason is  _precisely_  what I'm trying to stamp out." She turns to Soul, simpering. "How are you feeling, you poor dear?"

Soul scowls at her. " _What_  was in that peanut?"

"Ah, yes," Medusa says, as if she's just remembering. "I owe all of you some explanations, don't I?" She sighs. "But first…" Drawing a familiar flower out of her pocket, she leans forward and sniffs it, and it gives Soul more than a little satisfaction to see her cough in disgust as she sniffs it the second time.

Black*Star spills out of the flower with a grimace on his face. "What do you want now, you filthy- hey!  _Soul!_ Soul, it's me! How ya been, buddy! Could you get me away from this fuckin' witch?"

Medusa clamps her hand over his mouth with a clawed hand and his insults turn into incoherent grumbling.

"Enough of this," she says, glaring at Black*Star. "Time for my second wish. Genie, I want you to make  _my_  magic the most powerful magic in the world."

"Hoo dun han hee beenie?" Black*Star mumbles into her hand, and she tentatively removes it.

" _What?_ " she says.

"You don't wanna be a genie?" he says hopefully.

"As if I'd fall for that," she says, rolling her eyes.

"...Worth a try." He shrugs as he tentatively lifts up his fingers and gets ready to snap them. "Well, uh." He shoots an apologetic glance at Soul. "Here goes."

With a snap of his fingers, the aura of power surrounding Medusa noticeably changes, lightning crackling in her eyes as she lifts her hands out, cackling. Ragnarok grows, too, flapping his gigantic black wings in mirth as he screeches towards the sky.

"Oh no," Maka says, voice trembling and gaze distant. "Her… her soul is huge."

"... What?" Soul says, and she blinks, glancing at him with wide eyes.

"Oh," she says, and despite the situation, she laughs in surprise. "I… guess we both have some more things to tell each other. I can… see souls."

An ancient comment on a rooftop -  _you have a good soul, I can tell_  - hits him, and with it comes a warmth that fills him up, lending him courage.

"Well. Guess we'll have to stop her anyway," he says, squeezing her hand, and she smiles at him, though it's strained as Medusa turns her gaze back on them.

"Now," Medusa says, and as Soul watches her, something in the back of his mind twists again, a blackness that feels like it's  _dripping_  through his brain. "On to your explanations. I do value the truth, after all." Her eyes glint. "When it suits me."

"Welcome to my masterpiece," she says, gesturing at the cave behind her. "Hidden in this cave for millenia, a perfectly cultivated  _madness_. I didn't quite know what it would do if we released it, but… I do  _love_  to experiment."

Her eyes fall onto Soul, surveying him with a perverse curiosity. "It's affecting you more than them. Isn't it?"

"What did you do to me?" he asks, clutching his head again.

"I just gave you a little snack," she says. "Of my own design." She tosses another peanut up to the bird and regards Soul impatiently. "Oh, please. Don't look so upset. Ragnarok's got black blood and he does just fine."

"Black… blood?"

" _Yes_ ," she says, feigning boredom, as if she's explained this to him many times. "I've always wanted a weapon with black blood. And I couldn't turn  _Ragnarok_  into one." She chuckles maniacally. "He's a bird, after all. That would be ridiculous."

And he is a  _lot_  of bird. His wingspan now extends far beyond Medusa's shoulders, growing larger with each peanut he consumes.

"Eating peanuts and not having to fight is  _great_ ," Ragnarok affirms, a crazed smile stretching across his face.

"It's all thanks to Free, here," Medusa says, "that I got you to the castle in the first place." Free stills, glancing over at Soul. "And it's thanks to  _you_ ," she says, pointing back at Soul, "that I got my little guinea pig."

Free's eyes latch back on to Medusa, and when he speaks, his voice is deadly. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I needed someone to test out the cave for me. I couldn't go in  _myself,_ " Medusa says with another airy laugh. "You remember our deal. You got your eye, and I got to send Eruka on a trip… from which she, sadly, has not returned."

There is zero sadness in her voice, and with a burst of clarity, Soul realizes that, holy  _shit,_  she really  _was_  trying to turn him into a human sacrifice.

Free points an accusatory finger at her. "You  _broke_  the deal, then. You said she'd return safely."

"Ah ah ah," Medusa says, shaking a finger. "I  _never_  break a deal. When we made the deal, I asked if I could  _borrow_  her for a trip. I didn't say anything about bringing her back."

"You-" Free's shaking, now, rage filling him up. "You  _bitch_. You bring her back."

Her eyes narrow, though amusement still graces her features. "Obviously I can't do that. I'm sorry that our deal no longer pleases you. And if that  _is_  how you feel..." She slowly raises her hands in front of her and smiles wider. "...I'll be taking back that eye."

There's a millisecond of pure silence where everyone  _realizes_  what is happening… and then everything happens at once. As black arrows snake their way out of Medusa's fingertips, the three of them scramble out of the way, throwing themselves sideways into the sand. Soul is transformed and in Maka's hands in an instant, and Maka takes a swing at another arrow as it comes for them, the metallic clang of the contact doing strange things to his already pounding skull.

"Maka, I don't know if I can fight for that long-" he grits out.

"I have an idea," she murmurs. "It shouldn't take too long, but-" She takes another swing at an arrow, skidding backwards in the sand. "I need to talk to Free."

"I uh- don't know how easy that'll be-" Soul says as she dashes forward to clash with another arrow.

"We need a  _distraction_ ," she says, and Soul starts to look around wildly, searching for something distracting… and his eyes land on Black*Star.

"I know what to do," Soul says with a jolt. "When?"

"Now is good," Maka gasps as she swivels and blocks an arrow coming at them from behind.

"All right…" In between arrow attacks, he pokes his head out of weapon form and shouts the only thing that comes to mind.

"Hey, Black*Star! I heard the bird say that your flower smells  _terrible!"_

The effect is instantaneous.

"You  _WHAT?_ " Black*Star howls as he rises up to mirror the bird's height and raises his fists.

"I did not!" Ragnarok says, and Black*Star pauses for a minute, regarding him curiously.

"...But it  _does,_ " Ragnarok adds, grinning.

" _You little_ -"

And directly above Medusa's head, a full on fist-slash-wing fight breaks out, causing her to topple backwards into the sand. The three of them start to bicker as Maka runs over to Free, turning her back on Medusa with Soul watching over her shoulder.

"I have an idea," Maka murmurs. "If Medusa's the one that gave you the eye,  _you still have her magic_. That's probably why she wants it back." Free's eyes widen and he nods, listening carefully.

"I think if we get her back into the cave, we can trap her in there," Maka continues. "Is there anything you can do that will push her in really fast, or keep her there? There's no way anything we do will be enough."

In the distance, Black*Star's even-larger-than-usual abs are still blocking Medusa's view as he lands a punch on Ragnarok's face.

"There's... something I can try," Free says. "But I can't really control it-"

"It'll have to work," Maka says. As Medusa manages to separate the bickerers - via the very effective tactic of pointing black arrows at their throats - Maka adds, "Can you buy us a few more seconds?"

"You got it."

Maka darts away from Free and curves around, making a beeline for Medusa from the side as Ragnarok preens his feathers and Black*Star sinks back into his flower to pout.

"Oh no! The madness! It's overtaking me!" Free declares with a swoon, followed by a spray of ice as he does a little jig, hopping between each of his feet and sending layer upon layer of ice at Medusa.

Taking advantage of the arrow-free moment, Maka darts in and snatches Black*Star's flower from where it lies on the ground, blocking a couple of Free's ice bombs in the process. By the time Medusa realizes what is happening, Maka is already halfway to the mouth of the cave, tucking the flower into her breast pocket. In retaliation, Medusa sends double the firepower in Maka's direction - all of the arrows,  _plus_  a sea of snakes rising up from the sand to snap at her ankles. But they're an effective team, and as Soul and Maka swipe at the snakes, Free puts the arrows to rest with his ice dancing.

Finally, Maka leaps through the mouth of the cave, and as she does, the madness spilling out of the cave stutters to a stop, the cave's eyes re-animating as someone who's not supposed to be there awakens its obsessive need to keep everyone out.

"Oh… oh dear," the cave says sadly. "One of you can be here, but the other can't! What a predicament! Ah, well. Time to bring it all back in, I guess!"

And as the cave's mouth starts to slowly close, the madness  _switches direction_  as the cave summons it back into the cavern. Maka frantically slams Soul's blade into the cave wall, holding tight as the cave forms a vacuum, pulling the madness in and leaving them clinging to the wall.

Against the sea of madness, Medusa's silhouette comes ever closer, Ragnarok perched back onto only one shoulder as the madness begins to recede.

"Well then," Medusa says as she comes to stand at the mouth of the cave, her anger thinly veiled behind her expression. "Not necessarily what I expected… but if I can't have the madness, at least you'll be trapped here."

"What about the genie?!" Soul yells, trying to bring her in closer. "Come and get him!"

"Keep your genie," she says, and Soul swallows hard as she turns from them with a final malicious grin. "I have all the power I need. You could've been a great weapon... but instead, you've chosen this."

"Any time now, Free," Maka mutters, hands sweaty and slipping along his handle. But Free's magic solution isn't coming, and the cave is closing, and as the last of the madness is pulled back into the cave-

"Go!" Free screams. Soul looks up to see a strange, translucent green box, with a lock and key, hovering in front of them, which then lurches forward and traps Medusa inside. They watch as Medusa's face morphs from smug to enraged in an instant, Ragnarok flapping his wings angrily on her shoulder.

Maka wastes no time in wrenching them free, sprinting to the entrance and sliding out through the cave opening. From the sand in front of the cave, the three of them watch as, enclosed in Free's magical green box, Medusa and Ragnarok sink into the earth, victims of the cave's very exclusive guest list.

As always, the last things to disappear are the cave's eyes, and Soul swears that it winks at them before settling back into its slumber.


	8. C'mon, whisper what it is you want

Far across the desert sands, all is quiet again.

It is still early in the morning, the sun casting tiny shadows across the dunes. Soul is  _exhausted_ , which he supposes is a normal side effect of a night spent skateboard-gallivanting and witch-conquering. His back is against the ground, and he's too tired to care about the sand in his hair, so he closes his eyes for a second before a shadow moves over him.

"Can't sleep yet," Maka says, tugging on his hoodie. He grumbles as he sits up, hunching over his knees. In the distance, Free is hunched over as well, running his hands absently through the sand.

"... How are you feeling?" Maka asks, glancing at Soul out of the corner of her eye.

"Um." He looks inward. Everything feels a  _bit_  better, he thinks; the twisting in his mind is less urgent, less intense. But even with the madness calmed… he can sense it, something unsettling there, a strange, almost demonic presence creeping through his veins.

"It's... still there, I think," he says, and she nods, clearly disheartened. "But," he adds, "don't  _worry_  about me or anything. I'll be fine."

She rolls her eyes at him, but reaches into her jacket pocket. "Here," she says, handing him the flower. "I wanna meet him."

Soul's not so sure if  _he_  wants them to meet, but there's something that he needs to do. He steels himself and sniffs the flower for what he knows will be the last time, and there is now some nostalgia mixed in with his disgust.

"What do you want now, you-  _oh!_  Oh,  _hell yeah!_  What is  _up!_   _Soul!_  My  _guy!_ " Black*Star twirls out of the flower in a literal pirouette, coming back to hover in front of them with a cheeky smile plastered across his face.

"Hey," Soul says, who can't keep himself from grinning at Black*Star's exuberance.

" _Man_  am I glad to see you, that witch was the worst, and-  _oh._   _OH!_ " He glances at Maka, then back at Soul, his mouth forming a little surprised o. " _Is this her?"_ he hisses at Soul, putting his hand up to his mouth like he's telling a secret. "You know, your meister girlfr-"

"This is  _Maka_ , Black*Star," Soul says loudly, grin wiped clean off his face.

"So  _yes_ , then," Black*Star says, and Soul fights the very powerful urge to put his face into his hands.

"...This is the one who wanted you to sneak into my room, isn't it?" Maka says dryly.

"Glad you can tell," Soul says, but as he turns to look at her, he can see that her ears are pink, and he doesn't know what to make of that. " _Anyway_ ," he adds before Black*Star can do any more damage. "I've got another wish to make."

"Whaaat? You do? It's the last one," he reminds him, patronizingly, as if Soul doesn't know how to count to three. "You gotta make it a big one. Like, the  _biggest one ever_."

"I have a question first, though," Soul says. "Is Medusa… gonna be stuck there for awhile? Even with the 'most powerful magic in the world'?"

"Ohhhhhh yeah," Black*Star says. " _I_  was down there for 10,000 years, remember? Me." He points at himself. "Black*Star."

" _Yes_ , okay, I get it," Soul says. "In that case… I already know what to do."

"Oookay. Let's hear it!" Black*Star says, cracking his knuckles.

"Okay. Get ready," Soul says.

"I'm ready, I'm ready," Black*Star says, jumping up and down. "Man, this better be some wish."

"I wish…" Soul watches him very carefully. "... to bring everyone back to normal." Black*Star's face freezes. "Back to what things were like, before you became a genie. Or, for us not-old-farts… just bring us back to normal.  _Except_  for Medusa and the bird, obviously. And… except for me."

Black*Star's face is so frozen that Soul wonders if Free had gotten a crack at it with his ice feet.

"You're speechless," Soul says, starting to smile. "I  _do_  have that effect on people."

"...Why?" comes a soft voice to his right. He leaves Black*Star to his gawking and turns to see Maka staring at him, the soft disbelief on her face nearly breaking him in two. "Why would you not change back?"

"Okay," he sighs. "... You ready for the last thing?" She doesn't  _look_  ready, but she nods resolutely anyway.

It's true to form, he thinks, for her to jump first and ask questions later.

"Because…" he says, "I'm not really a weapon." He gestures halfheartedly toward Black*Star. "I wished for it. And I'm not giving it up."

She swivels to face him completely. "But- you just said- the  _black blood_ -"

"Listen," he says, frustrated, shaking his head. "I know you wanna protect me from that. But I'll figure out how to handle it, cause there's, like,  _nothing_  that'll keep me from being your weapon, okay? As long as you want me, I'm here."

As he says the last part, she scrunches her face up a little, trying not to laugh, and he scowls, pinking.

"Sorry," she says, placing her hand on his arm. "It's just… you keep having to monologue."

It's true, he  _does_ , and it's awful.

"So… you lied to me," she says, her laughter disappearing. "For a really long time."

"...I did," he says. "I was scared-"

"You shouldn't have been," she says, cutting him off. "It was  _stupid_. You're so stupid.'

It's true, he  _is stupid_ , and oh look, he's found something even more awful than monologuing: disappointing Maka.

"But," she says. "I know why. And… I still want you to be my weapon."

"Really?" he says far too eagerly, all semblance of coolness evaporating on the spot.

"... Yes," she says, hiding a smile as she gazes at the horizon.

As she says it, Black*Star finally manages to unfreeze himself, and he looks at them both, tiny little stars lighting up in his eyes. "Okay, so… we good here? Are you sure?"

He looks over at Maka, who nods, and he looks back at Black*Star.

"See you soon," he says, and Black*Star rises up, stretching as far out of the flower as he can, and snaps both fingers.

Suddenly, the sand starts to swell around them, kicking itself up into a storm. Soul's hair is doomed at this point, so he gives up on even trying in that department, scrunching his eyes shut as the sand swirls. Where the cave had been, the ground starts to almost bubble, sand rising and falling from the surface like water brought to a boil. Sand also rises up to cover the skateboard and the flower, gliding over them… and when the winds die down and Soul opens his eyes, two  _people_  stand in their wake.

"Hm," the boy on the right is saying, lifting up a section of his hair and glancing at the three white stripes that cross it. He looks at it for another long moment, then looks at the sky and snaps, "Really? 10,000 years of being your friend and you can't even make a small  _cosmetic change?!_ "

As he says it, a blue-haired blur crashes into the sand a few meters from them.

"Hold, please," Black*Star says, eyes already locked onto the other person standing before them. " _Babe!"_  His gleeful cry echoes across the sands, and before Soul can blink, Black*Star is speeding past, throwing his arms around the girl and dipping her low into a kiss.

"Hi, Black*Star," she says warmly when they break apart, wrapping her arms around him.

"And sorry, Kid," Black*Star says, clapping the stripe-haired boy on the back. "The request was 'back to normal', and this is your default setting."

Soul's staring at them both, mouth agape, and suddenly it all makes sense. He can already  _tell_  that this is the skateboard, but he feels the need to ask about the other.

"...You're the flower?" Soul says.

She smiles softly. "Black*Star's told me a lot about you."

"Eruka!" Soul turns to see Free sprint across the sand to where the cave had been, pick someone up, and swing them around.

It's a relief to see them reunited, Free stooping to kiss her on the cheek as they walk and Eruka pretending not to be flustered about it.

Other figures are rising out of the sand, too; two girls with cowboy hats make a beeline for the skate- _Kid,_ and his unimpressed expression warms a little as they throw their arms around him.

"Thank goodness!" another rather short figure is saying from across the sand. "I've got a  _lot_  of storytelling parties to catch up on!" Black*Star and Kid look at each other and grimace.

As they start to walk back to the Academy, Black*Star leans in to Soul and says, "Oh, uh, by the way, I did make  _one..._  cosmetic change."

"I  _love_  having a normal eye!" Free says in front of them.

"Stop  _poking at it_ , or you're gonna lose it again!" Eruka squawks.

"Hey Kid," Soul says, running to catch up to him. "Medusa will really stay down there? She's not too powerful to get out?"

Kid turns to him, nonplussed, as if he doesn't understand the question. "Of course," he says after a moment. "No one's magic is stronger than Death."

As Kid walks away, Soul doesn't understand anything any better, but given everyone's surety, he decides that he'll let it lie.

Beneath many many layers of sand, in a blue, cavernous room, sits a blackened sword. Next to the sword lies a silver snake, sitting  _almost_  close enough to catch it in its fangs.

* * *

Back at the Academy comes another round of reconciliations. As soon as they cross their way into the courtyard, Spirit bursts through the doors, hugs Maka's leg, and apologizes for allowing himself to be bamboozled by Medusa's wiles.

"I never should have trusted her!" he declares. "Her hair was always so…  _twisted_."

Blair tags behind him, and there's a very fearful moment where Soul is terrified that he's taken away his cat's ability to talk without thinking before she rolls her eyes at him and says, "Please, kitten. I've  _always_  been a magical cat."

The end of the year comes and goes, and although Soul manages to scrape by to graduate, he and Maka both know they need to work on building up their connection, learning to trust each other again, to coexist as partners without all of the distractions. They work hard through the summer, and after all of the insanity of the past few weeks, it's good,  _easy,_  to be around her.

It dawns on him, one summer evening as he lies in his bed with Blair asleep on his chest, that they haven't been hangry in a very long time.

Resonance comes naturally, now, with no need for secrets. Black*Star and Tsubaki send them postcards, having decided to travel the world post-freedom ("There's so many places I have to show her!"). Kid and the girls are more enigmatic; Soul never really knows where they are, but Kid sends him letters, in looping, perfect penmanship, about their favorite skateboard shops. On the weekends, he and Maka both go down and help at the pet shop, though Eruka doesn't let them touch the frogs.

He's found solace in this circle of strange friends that he met by even stranger means. It... almost makes him feel like he  _belongs_ , or something.

Even so, there's one tiny hole in his heart that aches sometimes.

 _You're thinking about it again,_  Maka says, and he half-glares at her.  _You_ miss  _him._

Usually he'd deny it, but: ... _Yeah._

 _You should send him something_. His shrug is tangible through resonance.

 _Hey, um,_ she starts to think, and he's immediately distracted from their other conversation as he catches a  _glimpse_  of something in her thoughts, something that he thinks maybe he's seen before.

Something  _he's_  been thinking since the first time they resonated.

"I wanna try something," she says aloud, walking up to him. "... Do you trust me?" she asks.

Her thoughts are  _warm_. "...You know I do," he says, and so she jumps without hesitation, leaning up and planting a kiss on the corner of his lips.

Radio silence through the link.  _Did you just-_

"Mhm," she murmurs, and this time she pulls him to her, and both of them smile like goons against their first real kiss.

That night, he gets out a paper and pen, and writes a letter to his brother. After all, Maka's argument had been very… convincing.

Soul decides to tell him a story. A story about truth and lies, and magic and choices, and about the unlikely friendships that sometimes, if you're lucky, can be forged within the chaos.

Like a diamond in the rough.

**Author's Note:**

> If you've made this far... thank you thank you. Please let me know what you thought!! <3 All my love.


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